


The Desert Storm

by Blue_Sunshine



Series: The Desert Storm [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, Jedi, Jedi Council - Freeform, Jedi Culture, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Temple (Star Wars), Mandalorian Culture, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Old Ben Kenobi, Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, Tatooine (Star Wars), Tatooine Slave Culture, Time Travel, Young Anakin Skywalker, Young Obi-Wan Kenobi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 09:12:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18206480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blue_Sunshine/pseuds/Blue_Sunshine
Summary: In Tatooine legend, the sandstorm is Lukka, the Fury, both cleansing and damning. Lukka, the slaves believed, was Justice, was he who remade the world, and remade the soul.The storm screams at him, and Obi-Wan Kenobi screams back.





	1. Chapter 1

The land-speeders engine sputters, shrieks, and then dies with a jolt, slamming Ben into the drive shaft before it lists and finally stops. The sand the wind kicks up to scrape against the battered metal sounds like laughter.

Ben, who was once Obi-Wan, who was once more than a half-drunk man living so far on the scattered edges of civilization that the locals considered him both mad and a wizard, rumor casting doubt on his reality, as they debate whether he is a survivor, or something long dead, wandering the desert like so many other ghosts.

Ben is maybe more than half-drunk at the moment, as he forces himself from the speeder, swaying and cursing in thirteen different languages as his fingers tear at the latches for the engines. Sand strafes at his face and his hands and he pulls his scarf up to cover his mouth and nose. A sandstorm is rolling up on him, and had the speeder been functional, he would have been back at his hovel well before it reached him, but he’s been gradually losing speed his entire trip back from Mos Eisley, and the edges of it are threatening him now.

He gets the engine open and immediately pries at the air-filter, which is no doubt choked with dust. Something with bulbous, milk-blue eyes and a very sharp beak snaps at his hand when he gets the air-filter open, and Ben yelps in startlement. The little vermin scurries out, wads of fiber packed in its mouth, and half a dozen more follow, each no large than his thumb.

“No.” Ben says shortly. “No. _No_.” He staggers to his rear storage compartment and rips it open, and a dozen more scatter out, shrieking, leaping off. Ben smacks two from his clothes and then digs into the compartment with roiling nausea.

His spare filters are utterly ruined, the fiber-lines stripped from the frames by the little vermin. Ben stares at his misery for a long minute, wind whipping at his robes, and then gives in to a fit of pique which he will dearly regret later. He yells, loud, angry, and wordless, and slams a fist against the machine. The Force roils around him in his frustration, and the metal shrieks and shears as it is rent unnaturally, and then the speeder…snaps, sections flying in different directions and crashing with satisfying force.

Ben is left panting, shaking from head to toe. He turns and retches, nausea finally overcoming him, staggers away from the mess, wiping at is face with his scarf, and then sinks into the sand, utterly spent.

In the distance, the sandstorm looks like a solid wall, like a clean line bearing down, but up close, once it reaches you, it doesn’t come for you all at once. It starts as a dust, fine and light and almost imperceptible, carried on a gusting breeze that would feel like relief on any other day. The dust grows thicker, until it coats everything, until it is a taste and haze and then it clears some, like a reprieve. The wind hits stronger. And then the sand comes, starting as a whistling hiss and growing into a roaring scream, and then you are in it, and it is fury and chaos with no way out, snarling and crackling with power.

Ben crawls on hands and knees towards the broken pieces of his speeder. There is a tarp in the main compartment just for this purpose. To cover himself with if he ever gets caught in the storm. There are three, actually, and each one packed in by someone other than Ben. The slave who worked at the junk shop where Ben acquired the thing had packed the first one when his master wasn’t looking, eyeing Ben warily when he assured the red-skinned boy that it wasn’t necessary. The slave had done it anyway, and Ben hadn’t pressed the issue. The second had been forced on him by Beru, when she’d seen how small and tattered the first one was. She’d asked him if he was that much a fool or if he had a death wish. He hadn’t answered her. The third had been strapped to his rear compartment by Old Nan Jira, who sold desert fruits at market and always had a canteen of water to share among the slave-children. “One for you, and one for those in need.” She’d told Ben, after giving him his usual order of Japur butter, which was a gritty kind of paste made from the soft insides of Japur pods, and was a rather necessary remedy for the painful sunburn his fair skin acquired all too easily. Jira tells him that his skin will eventually harden to the sun, but for now, he needs the ointment.

Ben digs out a small trench in the sand next to the upturned side of his speeder and crawls into it, fastening the tarp and pulling it down over his body, creating a small pocket of protection. He hisses when the hot metal sears his skin, shifts uncomfortably, and listens to the storm as it screams over him.

Ben tends to watcher over the Lars’ from afar, passing along the ridge east of their farmstead on his rare trips into town, and otherwise simply reaching out to feel them through the Force, while he mediated outside his hovel at night. When he did visit, normally because Beru saw him lurking and flagged him down, he didn’t know what to say. By and large because he didn’t know who to be.

But Beru never minded, drawing him in to the cool shade of her kitchen, and sitting him down at the table. She let him sit in silence, offered him a cup of tea, and she filled the quiet for him, gently rocking Luke in her arms. Owen would sometimes pass through, and seemed far more bothered by Ben’s unnerving silence, and by the ragged desolation ever present in his eyes.

It was Beru Whitesun, Wife of Lars, who told him the stories all the desert children knew. Stories Anakin once have must known. She told him of Ar _-_ Amu, the All-Mother, who watched over her children from her seat in the moon. She told him of Ekkreth the Trickster, who was not the villain but the savior, the guardian of slaves and the hidden folk. She told him of Leia the Great Krayt Dragon, whom all the shackled people prayed to, for Leia was Unfettered, was she who broke her own chains, and represented strength and freedom to her people. Beru didn’t ask why he crumpled at the story, why he curled in on himself and buried his face in his hands, but did not weep. And she told him of Lukka the Fury, who was the sandstorm, both cleansing and damning. Lukka, the slaves believed, was Justice, was he who remade the world, and remade the soul.

The storm screams at him, and Obi-Wan Kenobi screams back.

~*~

When the storm passes, Ben feels….oddly settled. His entire body aches deeply, but screaming out his rage and grief and loneliness and _guilt_ had eased a great deal of darkness from his soul. The occasional colossal loss of control was, apparently, cathartic.

Ben digs himself out of weight of sand now burying him, his speeder, and everything else he might recognize. The pale dawn of first sunrise is just coming up, turning the world violet and blue and pale yellow, and Ben judges that he is precisely in the middle of nowhere, but probably still closer to Mos Eisley than to his hovel, and so he would be better served by walking back south.

He scavenges what he can from what he can find – a pack, for one. Two of his canteens, one nearly empty, his jar of Japur butter, a block of pressed tea, which had been his purpose for venturing back into civilization (along with the bottles of corellian brandy which he can _not_ find) half a dozen compressed ration packs, which was only a third of what he had purchased from town, and the new circuits he had picked up for one of his malfunctioning vaporators. Ben rolled and tied one of the tarps up to the pack, shouldered it, and sighed, trudging through the dust back towards town. With luck, some enterprising Jawa’s might find the wreck of his speeder, put it back together, and sell it back to him the next time they brought their caravan through.

Obi-Wan has been on Tatooine for almost four years in near-complete solitude. The long walk through the sand and scrub no longer bother him, as he spends most evenings and most mornings wandering aimlessly out on the edge of the Jundland Wastes. It had taken him less than a month to procure a staff to carry on these walks, as it became vitally necessary to fend off the odd attack of a Tusken. They’ve learned he’s a formidable opponent, and he’s begun to suspect that challenging him has become a game for the younger warriors among the nearest tribe. It’s not a fighting style he’s used to, but he’s learning, and it keeps him active. It helps him sleep, sometimes. Most nights, however, once he’s exhausted himself walking, he spends on a rock shelf above his hovel, looking out over the dust sea and the most stars he’s ever seen while still on-planet, letting himself drift in the Force. He has visions of the ongoing misery in the galaxy, of the dark dread that is hunting the last of his people and slaughtering them. He hallucinates, some nights, swearing he can hear the dead, catching glimpses of ghosts, losing his sense of time and place until he is violently sucked back into his own body, gasping in pain and his head reeling.

Which is when he climbs down from the rock face and starts walking again, with nowhere to go.

Ben has cast his senses out, and so he can feel Mos Eisley long before he arrives. Can sense the heat-baked stone, the deep wells, the people, individual life-forms each bright and noisy and far easier to distinguish than they have ever been. Ben is far more in-tune with the Force these days, for all that he has never been powerful in it the way the great Masters were, the way Anakin was. During the war, it had felt almost impossible to reach, but Tatooine and a great deal of brooding had taught him not to reach out for it, as the Temple had shown them, but to reach in. His connection to the Force existed within him, and what he called for beyond his own skin was not separate from that, but one and the same.

Which was an epiphany reached when he was utterly drunk and delirious from lack of sleep. Hallucinating an out of body experience was not a method he recommended for helping teach padawans to deepen their understanding of the Force.

Ben finally reaches the outskirts and all but collapses in a spot of shade, sweat drenching his undershirt as second sunrise had come up and midday had soon followed, when the air shimmered with heat and most beings took shelter. Even slaves were rarely forced out at this time, when it was all too easy to fall prey to heat exhaustion, all too easy to die of it.

His head was pounding, which was probably more his hangover than anything else, and his senses where all oddly alert, his skin practically buzzing. The energy encouraged him to get back up, for all his mind and muscles protested.

There seemed to be decidedly more people in Mos Eisley today than there were yesterday. Cantina’s and markets were crowded, and Ben couldn’t quite fathom the sudden influx of slaves. The Empire all but condoned the practice, but the blockade against the Hutts had diminished their presence on Tatooine greatly. Perhaps the blockade had been dissolved. Ben deliberately kept himself apprised only by rumor, because if he was aware of it, it he knew too much, he wouldn’t be able to not go back out in the galaxy, to not act, and that was no longer his place. His purpose now was to watch over Luke.

Ben slips himself into one of the crowded establishments, earning a few knowing looks for the sheer amount of dust and sand-cake on his person, and quickly acquired a jug of water and something to eat with the few wupiupi remaining in his pockets. The bartender ribs him a bit about getting caught in the storm, but Ben just shrugs, and lets the conversations around him wash over him.

He grows steadily more puzzled. Spice traders are talking fees in one corner, as though the blockade hasn’t put the prices up nearly double what they’re estimating, a few gamblers are grumbling about last weeks races, and then there is a name he hears once and considers a mistake, and then again, and again.

Gardulla the Hutt, they’re saying, is paying a visit to Mos Eisley.

Except…Gardulla the Hutt is _dead_. Ben knows because Anakin had commented on it, when her name came up on one report of many, while they were investigating the rise of the new criminal empire which had been pulled together by Maul and Savage.

Ben grips the edge of the table and breathes deeply, trying to reassure himself that he is awake and that he is not hallucinating. It all certainly feels real enough, for all that it makes no sense whatsoever.

Ben finishes his meal, such as it was, and slips back out of the cantina, listening to the Force prod him _this_ way, _that_ way. He finds himself on the edge of Mos Eisley’s shopping district, where a massive ship has settled down and a small settlement of elaborate portable structures have sprung up around it. Slaves with Gardulla’s emblem dart around, serving gamblers and bounty hunters and traders alike. There are fights being bet on off to his left, and exotic animals snarl and spit at him from too-small cages, and Ben is pulled through the throng until he all but knocks over a poor slave carrying some odd sprayer contraption that smells like swamp-water.

“Forgive me, sir!” She cries, dropping to her knees. “I must attend my mistress.”

Her hair is brown and tightly braided, her limbs and face too-thin with hunger and work, but not weakness. Her skin is strafed, like his is, as if she had been standing in the sandstorm, scratches and welts forming scabs that would become fine scars. He had had protection, and so his scratches would heal, but hers were far worse, suggesting she had stood far longer and far too vulnerably in the gale.

It’s a punishment some Masters use, he knows.

Ben is still trying to figure out why he can feel the Force pulling him towards her, why he can barely even sense her even though he’s looking right at her, when a small, bright star crashes through his vision, and a little boy clings to his mother, his brightness dimming to little more than a blip under her subdued presence. Under her _shielding_ , he realizes, dumbfounded at the sheer skill of it.

“Amu!” The boy says, hugging her arm and looking up at Ben with bright blue eyes, a challenge on his face as the toddler made sure Ben understood that this was _his_ mother.

With one swift motion she sweeps the boy into the protective curl on her body, all without looking, without lifting her head, and pleads again. “I must attend my Mistress.”

Ben chokes, a hard half-sob tearing hysterically out of his chest and then she does look up, startled.

“Is h-his name A-“ Ben chokes on it, again. “Anakin?” He asks, voice thin and thready.

Her brown eyes go hard and fierce, and then flat. Her entire expression goes flat and still, inscrutable. “Yes, sir.” She replies, voice meek, but just as flat as her expression.

Ben’s heart spasms in his chest, and he absently presses a hand to it, wondering if thirty-six is too young to have a heart attack or if stress was simply enough or if he had truly lost his mind or maybe died sometime last night, during the sandstorm.

“Oh.” Ben says simply. The little boy watches him warily, still stubbornly clinging to his mother, but his eyes watch Ben’s hands too and he knows all too well why. “I see. You should take me to your mistress.”

She scurries to her feet, fear flashing across her face, but nods meekly, picks up the sprayer, and leads the way.


	2. Chapter 2

Gardulla shrieks when she spies her waylaid slave, and snaps the whip in her hand, but does not actually strike the slave. Likely because Shmi wisely stopped just outside of its reach until her Mistress finished berating her and put Shmi to work misting her fat body.

Gardulla then eyes Ben up and down, his face and beard almost indistinguishably the same shade of dust-ocher, her bulbous throat bobbing. “Achuta.” She smiles widely, only slightly less grotesque than Jabba, or at least, less slimy. Jabba’s spice addiction had a rather unpleasant effect on his mucus glands, a condition from which Gardulla did not suffer.

“Chut chut.” Ben returns her greeting, feeling recklessly like he was speeding towards a spectacular crash with no intention of stopping. “Dohbra choba bedwana cheeka.” Ben says, feeling as if he’s misplaced the grammar a bit.

“Uba vopa shag?” Gardulla’s brow rises, gesturing to Shmi.

Ben nods. “Weeteeba.” He adds, gesturing to Shmi and her son.

Gardulla makes a wet, gurgling laugh. “Kava, outmian stupa?” She chortles. _How much are you willing to pay, foolish outsider?_

Ben clears his throat. “Greatest Gardulla, I would never insult you eminence by attempting to make an offer. After all, how could I, a foolish outsider, even contemplate to know their worth to you? I only wish to ask if you would even consider parting with them.”

She laughs again, far more boldly, her foul breath wafting over his face even at several paces apart. “You have manners, outsider. They please me.” She blinks, fat fingers tapping as she considers him. “This one _is_ proving less useful, with that squalling, unworkable brat. But what could _you_ offer me?”

Ben panics, just for a breath, as Shmi’s eyes flash towards him and away again, full of trepidation. If Ben is – is in the past, or some version of it, then he has nothing in this world but what he carried through the storm, and circuit boards and dusty ration packs are not going to please Gardulla the Hutt.

“I have a rare item of value.” Ben says slowly. “A kyber crystal.”

“Kyber?” Gardulla leans in, intrigued, bulbous eyes glittering. “Only the Jedi have Kyber.”

“I acquired the crystal from a dead Jedi’s lightsaber.” Ben claims, forcing himself to grin.

Gardulla pins him with her stare, very still as she considers this. Then she smiles, a Hutt’s wide, unpleasant smile. “I will consider it a good wager.” She finally booms, licking her lips with a thick tongue. “You may have them, _if_ you win.” Gardulla says. “Fetch me my cards. Tell me, _outmian_ , are you fond of Sabacc?”

~*~

Ben has played high-stakes Sabacc before, but playing against one of the most powerful Hutts in the galaxy, a Toydarian, both of whom cannot be influenced by the Force, a Trandoshan Pirate, and a Weequay smuggler is proving to be one of the most elaborate and desperate schemes he has ever concocted. Half of his opponents hail from species whose physiology makes them incredibly difficult to read, half of them are vacant to his senses in the Force, one of them is a cannibal, and all of them are slavers. Not only is it a game of psychology, but in this particular instance, it is also a game of whom is the better cheater.

And the stakes are damning.

The Weequay folds and bows out when the stakes grow beyond what he can afford, cutting his losses. The Trandoshan is discovered to have bet with someone else’s property, and gets violently removed.

Ben’s hands are starting to shake but he doesn’t dare drink the wine he’s been offered because the withdrawal is better than the loss of wit.

It all falls in a single hand. Gardulla loses to the Toydarian.

The Toydarian loses to Ben.

Gardulla’s angered holler rattles the roof of their little gambling den, but it doesn’t devolve into violence, as it might have at Jabba’s. Jabba was a sore loser and a sore winner. Gardulla was more proud than that.

Ben has won not only Shmi and Anakin, but his own kyber crystal back, the probably sabotaged ship that the Toydarian had entered, an ungodly amount of spice that was the Weequay smugglers, and a reluctantly delivered stack of cho-mar credits that the Trandoshan parted with in order to avoid paying with his own hide for his false entry. To ensure the safety of his own skin, Ben did not agree to another game but did jovially pay for everyone’s next round of drinks, and then grinningly sold the spice back to the smuggler because he had no honest idea of what he could possibly do with it.

Gardulla’s majordodmo brings Ben the controllers for Shmi and Anakin’s detonators, and he gives a most gratuitous farewell to the Hutt before absconding with them.

Ben really, really wants a drink.

He acquires one, gulping it down gracelessly and letting the burn sooth his shattered nerves before he leads a very quiet Shmi Skywalker towards the parking number they’ve been given for his new ship.

It had two sleeping berths, a fresher, an almost non-existent kitchenette, and what Ben will politely call a smugglers hold. The Toydarian makes back most of his losses when Ben pays him for all the ‘missing’ and ‘damaged’ components. Funny how the replacement parts look like an exact match to the original ship.

Shmi and Anakin watched him pace, mostly, huddled together on one of the sleeping berths while Ben oversaw the repairs, wanting them done as quickly as possible. Ben takes note of how she quietly soothes her son, and directs him around the knobs and buttons in the cockpit when his restlessness can’t be contained.

When the Toydarian finally leaves, raking Ben for as many cho-mar as he can, Ben all but falls into the berth across from them, and lets out one of the most exhausting sighs of his life.

“Master?” Shmi implores quietly, and Ben groans, flopping back up, to find her kneeling across from him, head bowed, hands quietly folded in her lap, and he takes a moment to choke on the title she’s given him, because it isn’t- it isn’t _Master Jedi_ – it’s…it’s _slaver_. It’s _tormentor_. It’s _owner_.

By the Sith, he remembered the way Anakin spat the title when he was angry, turning a helm of respect into the worst sort of insult.

“Ah, no.” Ben rasps. “I’m not…sorry, let me just….” Ben rummages for the remote detonators he’s been given, reluctantly picking them back up to examine them. “Ah… “He scowls at the devices, punching in the command codes he’s been given and cautiously disabling the settings. “There….deactivated, I think.” He hands them to her, and her eyes widen before she snatches them from his hands and presses them against her stomach. Slowly, she gets back to her feet and sits back down on the edge of her berth, before daring to take her eyes off him and examine the devices herself.

“My name is…Ben.” He manages, a whisper in the back of his thoughts telling him that Obi-Wan Kenobi is out there, young and not yet who he will be. His name belongs to that child now, and he….He shakes his head. He’ll figure it out.

“I am Shmi Skywalker, and my son is Anakin.” She says softly, still inspecting the devices while Anakin clung to her arm. “You knew us.”

It isn’t a question.

“I…” How does he explain…any of it? He does not want to lie to Shmi and yet the truth, the truth is…horrible. And impossible.

Shmi sets the devices aside, tucking them safely behind her, where _he_ cannot get to them, and pins him with sharp brown eyes. Her eyes are dark and deep, but it’s oddly difficult to focus on her face, as if it blurs when he looks at her too closely. He looks away, and in his peripheral he can see a younger woman with her sons snub nose and delicate chin. Her cheekbones are bolder than his, and her coloring is darker. When Ben looks directly at her, he sees someone older, someone whose features are blunt and unremarkable. His gaze wants to slide away.

It’s perhaps the most powerful and complex Hide-Me Force projection he’s ever witnessed. Jedi learned the basics of shielding like that as early as the crèche, when it is a game they play in the gardens. Jedi Shadows, it is rumored, can make themselves near invisible with their mastery of the technique.

The woman in front of him has never had a single day of formal training in her life.

“Have you ever heard of the Jedi?” Ben asks, just as quiet as she. Slaves, he had learned, spoke very softly.

“They do not come to Tatooine.” Shmi remarks. “I have heard of them.”

Ben’s expression twists into a wry, pinched grin. “Yes, well. We end up here, it seems, whether we intend to or not.”

“You are a Jedi.” Shmi comments, and then hesitates, wringing her hands. “You knew my Ani. He is like you.”

“As are you, Lady Skywalker.” Ben offers.

“I cannot do what Anakin does.” She says, looking nervous. She pulls the little boy into her lap and smooths her palms over his hair. He looks up at her, tongue sticking out. She smiles for him, but her gaze tracks back to Ben’s.

“I don’t think that is for a lack of ability, Lady Shmi.” Ben says carefully. “Have you ever tried?”

Her pallor turns sickly and she shakes her head in denial, wrapping her arms protectively around her son. He cannot imagine the horrors that haunt her, the fears.

“You are safe, Shmi.” Ben assures her, being careful not to move towards her. “You are safe, and Anakin is safe. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She clings to her son, watching Ben warily. “We are free?” She asks.

“You are.” Ben nods. “We can arrange to get the detonators properly removed at the nearest medical facility as soon as you wish.”

“Not on Tatooine.” Shmi says quickly, a shadow of anger crossing her eyes. Ben agrees wholeheartedly, though he doubts he could even begin to guess that dark underbelly of the seedy ‘medical facilities’ he’s encountered here. The only decent healers he’d ever found on this hellhole were the midwives, and the travelling surgeon that Beru put up whenever he passed through and whose name no one ever bothered to share. Given that the man carried an illegal scanner and did his work in hidden rooms under unassuming places, Ben never pressed.

“It can be done at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, if you wish, or I can find a suitable facility along the nearest hyperlanes.” Ben assures her. She stares at him, neither agreeing or disagreeing.

“Can we be alone?” She asks, still hunched over, curled protectively around her little boy, who takes the treatment with a solemn compliance no child that young should have.

“I’ll go see about acquiring fuel.” Ben assents calmly. “I’ll be awhile. There’s water in the canteens and I left ration packs on the counter which you are free to take. It’s not my place to make your choices for you, but if you would accompany to market this evening, we can get you what you and Anakin need to be comfortable.”

Shmi stares at him still, and nods mutely. Ben leaves, hearing the first sob crack before he’s made it to the loading ramp, a mother rocking her son in shattering relief.

~*~

Acquiring enough fuel to get the ship to Coruscant, plus enough reserves to account for any emergency delays or detours leaves Ben’s reserve of cho-mar much, much more modest than it had seemed when he won it at the Sabacc table. He takes a long walk around the market afterwards, and pauses by one hole-in-the-wall grill to listen to the races with several very excitable companions. When it begins to near first sunset, and the market readies itself for the evening surge as the heat starts to give way, Ben heads back towards the ship, whose title, he discovered, was _Red Kettle_ , hopefully due to the scuffed red paint job, and not an issue with the heating systems.

When Ben returns, Anakin is sitting on the one square foot of counter that exists in their almost-kitchenette, attempting to shove half a bun of rehydrated bread in his mouth, and Shmi appears to be investigating the cupboards. Both of them have damp hair and freshly scrubbed skin, having made use of the fresher, and both of them freeze when he calls out a greeting in an attempt _not_ to startle them.

“Sorry.” Ben says. “Is everything…”Ben trails off as he gets a look at the dead, slightly desiccated womp rat Shmi has just pulled from the cooler unit. “Ah.” He sighs. “Well, I’ve acquired the fuel we’ll need and the first sun is just setting.” He says pleasantly.

“We’ll need more rations.” Shmi says, knuckles white and eyes refusing to look at him. “And a spare water filter…”She hesitates to ask for more, and Ben relieves her of the clearly trying effort.

“I’ll trust your judgement. I’m merely there to ensure nothing unpleasant occurs.” He says, stepping forward to hand her the credits pouch.

Shmi turns to take it, stops, turns back to throw the dead womp rat down the disposal unit, and then turns back and cautiously lifts it from his hands. He ignores that hers shake, and smiles at Anakin instead, whose cheeks are puffed up with the bread he’s valiantly trying to chew.

Shmi takes a few more minutes to inspect what surprises remain in their kitchenette, and then scoops Anakin up.

She’s still wearing the collared garment marked with Gardulla’s emblem, as it is the only thing she has, but Ben’s presence stops any leers from becoming more than that. They rent a hover-cart to carry their purchases, and Shmi acquires what the ship needs with the deft acuity of a life-long haggler, Anakin occasionally adding his opinion on the negotiations, which was unfairly adorable.

At least until the toddler started cussing. “E chu ta, sleemo!” The child shrieked angrily at the paunchy twi’lek who has spat at Shmi. Ben balked in surprise and then stepped between the Skywalkers and the unpleasant scrap-monger.

“I rather think they’re done dealing with you.” Ben says, voice edged with warning. The twi’lek eyed him up and down and backed off with a grumble.

Shmi’s face is utterly blank as they move to the next peddler.

Shmi takes longer among the food vendors, quietly whispering to Anakin as she picked over their choices, describing to him what was good and what was not and engaging him in a playful debate about ration packs versus fresh food, of which Anakin was of the opinion that they needed fruit and only fruit and all the fruit.

Anakin, Ben discovered, as Shmi repeated things softly and slowly, was far more familiar with Huttese than Basic, though he also blurted out a few choice phrases in Twileki. For a three year old, it was quite impressive.

Ben discreetly acquired a small bag of candied pallies and desert plums, an act which did not escape Shmi’s notice at all, if the flat look she gave him was any indication. Ben just smiled innocently and dropped them inside the battered tea kettle he’d bargained for.

The freed woman was far more hesitant to spend their credits on the things she and Anakin needed personally, and Ben’s attempt at making casual suggestions was met with as much if not more haggling between the pair of them than between Shmi and the vendors. Shmi won on principle, of course, acquiring only the simplest, cheapest clothes, but conceded to allow Ben to convince her to obtain good quality shawls and cloaks for herself and Anakin on the merit that space travel was far colder than the pair were used to.

One decision, and the only decision Ben made on her behalf was the acquisition of a small blaster with stun charges and a vibroblade with a wrist sheath.

Shmi’s composure faltered for a moment, overcome with panic, before she pushed it down and nodded without looking at him as he set them among their other purchases.

He’d show her how to use them, their first night in space-flight, after Anakin was asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s a more adventurous trip than he’d like. Between encouraging Shmi through the basics of self defense and meditation and doing his best not to constantly overwhelm her with his presence given the tight quarters, they experienced a severe heating malfunction that melted several circuits, of which they eventually managed to bypass after free-floating in empty space for an entire cycle for fear of overheating the ships paltry hyperdrive; lost Anakin in the walls due to the abundance of hidey-holes which made the ship so very convenient for smuggling; and _accidentally_ strafed the underside of a cargo frigate when they came out of hyperspace a little too far into the shipping lanes. Anakin had whooped in delight as Ben jerked the controls and swerved wildly to avoid a head-on collision with the frigates guard vessel, but then again, that was probably because Anakin was in Ben’s lap, and thought _he_ was the one piloting.

Shmi was still tense and uncomfortable in his presence, and likely would be for a very long time after years of abuse, but Anakin had had far less reservations after Ben had started plying him with pieces of candied fruit for accomplishing simple tasks, such as putting the rations back in the cupboard, or not climbing all over his mother while they attempted to meditate, or coming out of the walls when they started shrieking his name in panic. As such, the young boy had taken to climbing on Ben as frequently as he climbed on his mother, and walking in on him in the fresher, which was far less amusing, and running in circles around him or climbing into his lap when he attempted to meditate, or when he was piloting.

Coruscant is a thrumming hive when they arrive, and Ben doesn’t realize he’s white knuckled and that his vision is beginning to black out until Anakin reaches up and puts his chubby little hands on either side of Ben’s face. Ben gasps, sucking in air, and rights the controls so they don’t end up a trailing ball of fire as they enter the atmosphere. The last time he had been on Coruscant...the last time…

He’d been choking on death and betrayal and the endless devastation of loss just _screaming_ in the ether. He’d reached out, reaching and reaching and no one had answered. There was just silence, and _cold_. The entire galaxy had seemed cold, and he had been so very alone.

Here, now, the Temple practically glows with the light of so much _life_ , and Ben’s eyes stream with tears. Anakin wipes them away with childish care, staring solemnly up at Ben.

“Don’ be sad, Ben.” The youngling murmurs, leaning in and wrapping his arms around Ben’s neck in a warm hug. Ben settles is chin on the boys head and calms himself.

It’s far easier to approach the Temple than he remembers, security so tight during the war that you could be shot down for even a malfunction-caused stray from assigned traffic lanes or a too-long delay in relaying the proper authorization codes. Not fatally, most times, but CorSec had been high strung after the attacks on the Senate Dome.

They direct him to a guest landing platform without even sounding concerned, and the sheer ease of it, the lack of suspicion, the lack of tense expectation, it _hurts_. It’d been a long time since the Jedi felt safe. Even in their own home.

Ben’s first greeting when he steps off his vessel is the rather colorfully unimpressed commentary of a dented astromech that didn’t like the look of his ship. His second is from a white-cloaked Temple Guardian, who offers a rather jaunty greeting.

“Heyo! We’re gonna need you to sign in for a visitors clearance pass if you three will follow me!” They waved, before trotting off towards the platforms security station. Shmi holds Anakin tightly to her chest and keeps herself in Ben’s shadow as they walk, but she does not bow her head. Instead, she looks around with no small amount of wonder and a little bit of apprehension. To go from a backwater like Tatooine to the very heart of the Galactic Republic was a…jarring transition, to say the least. He could sense her pulling quiet around herself and Anakin, muting their presence as if it were as easy to do so as breathe. “Oh, nearly forgot, do you have a Jedi sponsor? This is a much easier process if you do.” Their escort inquires.

Ben hesitates, letting his brain reel for a moment in the same debate he has been having with himself for days, and finally throws it all to the wind, and the Force. “Myself.” Ben says, folding back the edge of his robe to reveal the lightsaber hanging from his belt.

“Oh, sorry Master! You didn’t give us your access code when you came in to land.”

“That would be because I don’t have one.” Ben says easily. “I have been out of contact with the Temple for quite some time.”

“I see.” The guardian says, losing his chipper attitude to confusion.

“If you could arrange for Lady Skywalker and her son to see a Healer at the earliest opportunity, they are in particular need of a surgeon.” Ben pushes forward, because even if he is making shit up out of thin air, there still is no sense of danger, no comprehension of possible threat from the guard, and the innocence is heartbreaking. “I, on the other hand, am content to wait with my vessel until a Master becomes available to escort me to the Council, if that would make things easier?”

“Any Master in particular?” The guardian asks, their expression unreadable behind the protective face-plate, but their voice thin with uncertainty.

Ben thinks about it for a moment and then smiles. It’s probably not a pleasant smile.

“Master Yan Dooku, if he happens to be in-Temple.” Ben says. “Though anyone who is free would be just fine.”

“Very well, Master…” The guard trails off, realizing that they have not traded introductions.

“Naasade.” Ben says, half a wry smile on his face. He doubted anyone he’d encounter here would know the old language of Mandalore well enough to understand what the name meant.

_No one._

_~*~_

Shmi is hesitant to leave the only person here with whom she is familiar, but the appearance of a young and innocent-faced Padawan escort soothes her nerves, and her desire to be free of the detonator chips overcomes all else.

Ben wanders back to his ship and argues with the mouthy astromech for awhile.

That Master Yan Dooku is not in temple does not surprise Ben. Even as early as this, his grandmaster had been pulling away from the Order, estranged from both his Master and his Padawan. Yoda’s lineage was full of strong personalities, and renowned for its stubbornness. Its misery was that they butted heads with each other and often as they did with everyone else.

Instead, the volunteer who comes to fetch him is not only a Jedi Master, but a Jedi Elder, who no doubt saw the task as an interesting break from the simple life of a Temple retiree. Jedi Elder’s often volunteered for such odds and ends tasks as escorting visitors, back when visitors had been allowed in the Temple, or assisting Crechemasters, or redecorating the gardens in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, when they were not hosting lectures for Padawans or reconciling intelligence reports for the Archives or whatever else they had chosen to do as a means of occupation now that they were no longer assigned missions.

The wizened, floppy eared Bimm introduced herself as Master Polkit, and Ben had learned long ago that just because a being was half his height by no means meant that it was acceptable to dismiss their prowess. She may stoop and shuffle as she walked, but Yoda too played up the vulnerability of his age, and Ben had been in a brawl involving a Bimm before. They may come from a traditionally passive society, but they were sharp-toothed and vicious when they needed to be.

“Were you on search, Master Naasade?” She inquires, her voice still as rich and lyrical as a tweenling of her kind. “I heard rumor a young boy has been brought to the Healers.”

“Had I been on search, Master Polkit, I dare say I would have been better prepared.” Ben muses lightly, earning an amused twitch of whiskers. “No, I have been….adrift, for quite some time.”

Had it only been four years? He questions himself. It had felt like far longer, wandering the desert and plagued by ghosts and the silence where he wished ghosts would have been. But the truth is less distinct than that. The truth is that he has been wandering for far longer, trying to escape doubt and shaken faith, trying to come to terms with what had become of who they were long before he had exiled himself to Tatooine. His men had had fits about his tendency to wander away from the security of camp and into the wilds of whatever planet they’d come to protect or liberate or reconcile that day. Cody, praise the man, had been a stalwart volunteer when it came to ensuring their General didn’t accidentally get himself eaten by wildlife, and Ben would only recognize after the fact that he likely cost his commander hours of his own rest, just to watch over his Jedi as he struggled to find solace. The trooper had never complained, nine hells, he’d never even felt _frustrated_ by it.

“And now?” The elder inquires, as they enter another lift, politely bowing to a pair of Padawans as they exchange places. Ben enters the code for the Council Tower and considers his next words.

“Now I think I have been given a purpose.” Ben says, feeling fragile hope try and spread in his soul and resisting the urge to quell it, because experience cried that it would only disappoint him. It would only _hurt_ , if he allowed himself to give into it. But if this was real then…then perhaps all his pain, all his suffering and loss, had been for a reason.

“It is good to have purpose.” The elder agrees sagely, tilting her head. “But it is not everything.”

“But it is something, Elder, to those who have had _nothing_.” Ben replies, just as sagely.

They step off the lift and she surprises him – startles him, really – by reaching up and grabbing his hand with old, blunt-clawed fingers, her skin hard and calloused even in comparison to his.

“It is our way to claim you never have nothing, for you have the Force.” She says, her voice a low croon, which is possibly the only reason he doesn’t jerk away. He has not done…well, with people, of late. “But your eyes alone tell me that you have learned the hard way that this is not always true. What we are is our blessing, but it is also our burden.”

“They teach us that because we have the power to help others, we should, but that’s not why we do it at all.” Ben says, words spilling out like so much wasted blood. “We help the galaxy because we hope and pray and beg that if we do enough, if we soothe enough pain and ease enough suffering and stop enough wars, we’ll stop _feeling_ it, always, crying out in our heads and aching in our bones because there is no escape, for us. We give everything and anything in the _hope_ that we just might get a single moment of peace, a reprieve from an existence that is _agony_.”

“Yes.” She replies simply, and Ben sags in relief, that someone, finally, has acknowledged the truth. “But we don’t tell our younglings that.”

Ben nods, because he understands, and pauses, wanting to tell her more, to tell her that he has _seen_ it; the galaxy without the Jedi, but she pats his hand once more and let’s go, and Ben exhales the breath he was holding. “Thank you, Elder Polkit.” Ben bows, and she smiles, revealing worn, crooked teeth.

Surprisingly, they don’t have to wait long before being summoned into the Council Chambers, but when Ben see’s that all twelve seats are filled, he understands why. On true session days, when the full Council met to discuss issues relevant to the temple, debates could get…drawn out, and being stuck in the room for extended hours as the discussion went in circles was exactly as frustrating as it sounded. Interruptions, either by Jedi making urgent mission reports or Master’s who wished to bring a certain topic before the council while they were available, had been a more welcome reprieve than most Knights would ever know. During the war, of course, it had been different. The Council had met almost daily, and yet were almost never actually in the same room. And matters within the Temple had often, too often, been waylaid by the external matters of the war.

To be a peacetime Councilor, he muses, would seem a refreshingly boring affair in comparison.  

It takes him a moment to register that this is not a Council he is entirely familiar with, though the faces he knows well enough. Adi Gallia nor Shaak Ti yet have a seat, Mace Windu is not yet Head of the Order, and so sits on the edge of the circle as a new member, and not at its center, Master Yaddle and Master Jocastu Nu still had chairs, and…and Master Sifo-Dyas, whom Ben had not expected at all.

“Thank you, Elder Polkit, for escorting our guest.” Master Fisto dips his head respectfully.

“Sssst.” She chuffs. “Councilors, the young man escorted _me_.”

There is a pause felt in the room, contemplative on the part of the Council, and short-circuited on the part of Ben, who had not been fully aware of just how much the Elder had allowed him, a supposed stranger to the Temple, to lead the way. Sheepishly, he nods in her direction, always respectful of anothers craftiness. Her whiskers twitch in amusement, and she departs with that, the doors closing softly behind her.

“Know this Temple, you do.” Yaddle comments wryly.

“Know you, this Council does not.” Yoda adds thoughtfully. “Curious, that is.”

Mace Windu frowns, leaning forward in his chair, and Ben pulls his own shields up, the way a defensive youngling might hunch their shoulders. Ben rather does not want to know what shatterpoints Mace might see around him. For that matter, he avoids looking directly at Master Sifo-Dyas, who was renowned for his capabilities as a Seer.

“You are welcome to test my identity as a Jedi Master any way you wish.” Ben says. “I will not fail.”

“ _What_ you are, I do not doubt. See it, I can.” Yoda croaks, eyes narrowing at the challenge they’ve just been issued. “ _Who_ you are, in question, that is.”

“Master Yoda, surely that can be solved with a simple bio-scan. His identity must be within the records, and a blood test would reveal it.” Master Windu offers, voice rich and bold and younger than Ben has ever heard it. He’d forgotten, with time, that Anakin’s ill-advised appointment had _not_ beaten Mace’s record as the youngest Councilor ever to hold a seat. Unlike Anakin, whose meteoric rise was often attributed to his sheer power in the Force, Mace had advanced on the merit of his deep _understanding_ of the Force.

Ben considers this solution for a moment and finds himself grimacing a little. His identity might be confirmed as Obi-Wan Kenobi, as baffling as the result would be to those around him, but…truth be told, Ben has had vaccines that haven’t been invented yet, contracted viruses and obscure diseases from all across the galaxy, been the subject of experimental medical trials for some of those illnesses, had blood transfusions not only from fellow human Jedi, but from his clone troopers on more than one occasion, and once had a cross-species plasma-transfusion. Furthurmore, there are trace elements of volatile chemical compounds from weapons tests and poisonings alike in his system that only failed to result in lasting organ damage because Ben was so often in and out of bacta tanks – a substance which was also not yet known to the galaxy a large. That’s not even mentioning the replacement organs. To be perfectly clear, he has no idea what his genetic makeup currently resembles, but imagines it would horrify the nearest healer.

“I will to submit to a blood test, if you wish, but I do ask that you take particular care of any samples.” Ben speaks up. “I’m not sure the Temple has inoculations for some of the things I’ve come in contact with.”

“We’ll take that under advisement.” Windu says, looking a little put-off as a request for a scanner is submitted to the attendant outside.

“Confirmation, we will have, but introduce yourself, you should.” Yoda comments, when they trail into quiet thought.

“Jedi Master Ben Naasade is what I’m calling myself these days.” Ben replies, feeling oddly lifted by the way Yarael Poof waves his neck in irritation.

“Another name, you have?” Master Yaddle inquires, sounding less amused than Yoda would for asking the same question. Then again, Yoda adored intrigue.

“Only those that are no longer mine to claim.” Ben says softly, resolute in that knowledge. There is a spike of unease in the room at that, because that is not a particularly Jedi thing to say.

“We have been informed that you brought a youngling to the Temple.” Master Koon interrupts their other queries. “Is he to join the crèche?”

“That will be his mother’s decision, and no others.” Ben says. “She is with him, and they both required medical attention.”

“So that was not your reasoning for appearing before us.” Plo decides aloud. “Why have you come?”

“Because this is my home.” Ben replies. _Truth_ , the Force sings, and the Councilors once again feel uneasy. They are not yet so used to being kept in the dark.

“As amusing as you find your own equivocations, this council does not have all day to dance around the point.” Mace interrupts, and Ben gives him a flat, too-knowing look because that is kriffing well exactly what the Council tends to do on session days. Before the Harun Kal can grill him further, however, a Padawan Healer arrives with the requested scanner, and a HA-4 bio-disposal droid.

“For you, sir?” She inquires, looking at Ben, who nods. “Please place your finger here.”

“I do know how they function.” He points out, deciding his thumb would do.

She gives him the placid, unamused look all Healers have that tells him her training is nearly complete. The machine chirps a successful sample and Ben retracts his hand as it computes. The Healer observes the results as they process.

“Do you need medical attention?” She inquires flatly, eyes still glued to the display.

“Not at the moment.” Ben shrugs. “Or at least, not that I’m aware of.”

Around them, the Councilors shift, waiting with a tang of impatience. Finally, the machine dings and the Padawan sends the results to the Council chairs before placing the entire scanner in the HA-4 unit, which Ben thinks is overkill. Probably.

It’s not reassuring, to say the least.

She departs, and as a whole, the council frowns at the results.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi, it claims you are.”

“Oh, so there is enough left that’s recognizable.” Ben comments. “That’s reassuring.”

“Not as much as you’d think. The results are only seventy-nine percent conclusive.” Windu remarks dryly. “Which still explains _nothing_.”

“Spoken to Initiate Kenobi recently, I have.” Yoda comments. “Discussed his assignment to Bandomeer, we did. Departing soon, he will be.”

Ben…hadn’t realized how close to that date they were. Anakin’s age was always more of an estimate than a definitive, as slaves rarely marked a clean passage of time, and Ben had thought that his appearance in the past, or this assimilation of it, would have been after Qui-Gon claimed him.

Apparently not.

“Because you think he is too old and too emotional.” Ben says. “And you proved incapable of convincing Qui-Gon Jinn to claim him.”

“The will of the Force, it must be.” Yoda says narrowly.

 _My Padawan’s Padawan was nearly fifteen before she was assigned to her Master, and she would have been greater than the both of us_ , Ben thinks angrily, tiredly. _Had this Council not so terribly abused her._

“You disagree.” Master Sifo-Dyas remarks curiously, and Ben still does not turn to look at him.

“That was my life once that you let go simply because it was the way of things.” Ben says levelly, feeling far older than his thirty-some years. “The way we did things,” He clarifies. “ _not_ the will of the Force.”

“The Force guides us in all things.” Master Poof retorts tartly.

“Yet a Jedi Master I am, as Obi-Wan Kenobi will be.” Ben replies, just as tart. “So clearly, it was not as it you seem to think it should be.”

“Are we seriously entertaining the notion of time-travel at this very moment?” Mace Windu interrupts blatantly, eschewing Jedi Council stoicism in order to cut through the verbal sparring.

“Kindly don’t ask me to elaborate,” Ben entreats. “I have no idea how this happened.”

“But _when_ did it happen?” Master Piell asks gruffly, lacing his hands together.

Ben grimaces. “Six days ago and roughly…twenty years from now? Twenty-three, I think.”

“What were you doing?” Master Nu inquires, seeming unnerved by the entire account, though the Head Archivist hid it well.

Ben hesitates, remembering his rather ignoble display of throwing a fit at his broken-down speeder, vomiting, and then shouting into a sandstorm like a madman. “I was on Tatooine, and I had been trapped in a sandstorm. When it finally passed, I found myself…in this _when_.”

“Is there any reason you can think of, for this disturbance?” Master Nu presses. “What cause might have…sent you back?”

Mace Windu grumbles irritably, and Ben can’t imagine his headache. Shatterpoints can be debilitating even when impossibilities aren’t involved. Time looping on time coupled with prescient visions of the future must be a nightmare.

Ben can think of – of so much. So many dead. So many devastated worlds. The end of the Jedi. His Padawans Fall. But why _him_ , he hasn’t a clue. He has failed more utterly than any other being alive.

Ben looks at Sifo-Dyas for the first time, wondering if he has started having those visions yet, wondering if their dark future haunts his dreams, even now.

They need an answer from him, but he doesn’t know how much he dares say. Who is he, to have the fate of the galaxy weighing on his words, on his every action, on this moment, right now. What if he gets it wrong? What if he loses even more than he already has?

Ben closes his eyes, remembering Satine. He’d fallen and wavered, so many times on his journey to become a Jedi, but loving her and giving her up had been his true Trial. Every sacrifice made after had been easier, every conviction stronger, because he let her go.

Her death had devastated the certainty that his sacrifice had given him. Those last few months of the war following had been so full of doubt and despair he’s amazed _he_ didn’t Fall, but then…then he loved her still, and Satine’s memory would not have forgiven him.

He swallows, and pulls the light of the Temple towards him, shrouding himself in it. It does not bring him peace, and he doesn’t know if anything ever will again, but it offers him resolve.

“The return of the Sith.” Ben says, opening his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

There is immediate denial, disbelief, anger, _fear_.

They don’t say a word, in the moment after his pronouncement, but it is all there, roiling in the Force, shouting between them.

“Impossible.” Master Rancisis chitters. “The Sith were destroyed a millennia ago.”

“Sense their coming, we would have.” Yoda claims, raising a quelling claw against the miasma of disorder in the Force.

Ben holds himself still. He’s gotten good at it over the course of the war, over the course of training Anakin Skywalker, holding his breath, his trembling muscles, his emotions, not in, just… _still_. As unreadable as calm water.

“Because the Jedi are all-powerful and all-present and all-knowing.” Ben says flatly. “Because the Light is strong, and never fails.”

He doesn’t know why he came here, except for that his heart ached to do so. They did not listen the first time, even when the war was upon them, how could he have thought they would listen now? At least then, he had proof at least in Maul’s death, and still, with a decade between that and the end, they were incapable of rising to meet this threat that consumed them.

Out of habit, he had returned to those he had always held in trust, hoping that he would be saved by their wisdom and their action, and he had forgot how often they had simply not heard what he had to tell them, in those last years, how much they failed to see when shown, and perhaps he had convinced himself that it was only because of the war, because they were tired and spread too thin, but…

Despair is too familiar to be crippling, shrouding him like a worn cloak, and Ben turns and walks away from the Council, recognizing how foolish he had been to come before them so unprepared.

“What did you see?” Master Sifo-Dyas calls out, before he can reach the door.

“Nothing.” Ben replies. “None of us saw it, not until it was far too late.”

“Leave, do not!” Yoda calls out after an uneasy pause at his reply. “Troubling, your account is. Dismiss you, we do not mean to.”

“But you do not believe me, Masters.” Ben replies, turning back to the room because he isn’t going to stand there and talk to the door.

“Would you?” Windu asks frankly.

Ben wonders, what would he have done if say…Petro Katz, that brash initiate who struggled to think of others before himself appeared before him as a weary man, and told him that The Hero with No Fear was going to Fall, and slaughter every Jedi in the Temple, from feeble elder to helpless child.

No. Ben would not have believed him; could not even conceive that his Padawan would be capable of such cruelty…but he would not have been able to have dismiss it. The seeds of doubt would have been planted, and the warning would have rung in his head every time he saw Anakin lose his temper on the battlefield, every time he raged against the Council, so personally and ferociously, every time he scoffed at the reminder of the Code he had sworn to follow and that Ben ignored him following so loosely, so long as Anakin was still doing the right things, so long as he was still…Anakin Skywalker. His Padawan. His brother. A man he loved with a fierce attachment that he would not have admitted to.

“I would not want to.” Ben admits.

“Tell us more.” Master Nu entreats, gesturing form him to return to the center floor, ever the information-monger

“I could tell you everything I remember from the day I was sent to Bandomeer to the day I returned here, Master Nu, and still fail to save you. I could do even worse, by providing that knowledge, than fail to save you.” Ben says. “The future is always in motion, even mine, even now.”

“But how are we to ascertain the veracity of your claim without further input?” The Archivist replies testily. For all that Ben has ever respected Jocasta Nu, he has never quite managed to stay on her good side.

“Their identity, could you reveal?” Master Yaddle inquires, her green gaze far brighter than Yoda’s.

“How do you intend to deal with them?” Master Koon’s voice carries, and it is he Ben turns to with the most certainty.

“Violently, and with prejudice.” Ben replies coldly.

“You do not sound like a Jedi.” Master Poof sniffs.

“And you do not know how many have died while I bore witness.” Ben retorts, knowing that all of his agitation is not entirely _his_ , that the room is still roiling with their conflicting emotions, poorly released. He forces himself to breathe deeply, and pull on the Force, pulling on the _light-peace-calm_ that suffuses the Temple until it washes away the chaotic energy in the room.

“Appreciated, that was.” Yaddle dips her head in respect. “And well done.”

All of the Masters take a moment to reconcile themselves, settling into the cleansing uplift of energy he has drawn into the room and clearing their own thoughts.

“Placed upon you, has been, a great burden, hm?” Yoda intones, ears perked but eyes drooping, unfocused on the here and now, seeking answers in the Force. “With care, handle this, we must. Decisions to be made, there are. Made today, they will not be. Journeyed far, you have, and rest, you must. Welcome you into the temple, we do, Master Naasade. Your home, this is, and shall remain. Settle in, you should, and settle simpler matters, this Council has yet to do.”

“Thank you, Grandmaster.” Ben sighs, bowing. Yoda’s ears twitch, and he nods.

“I’m summoning my Padawan to assist you in with the details.” Windu nods to Yoda, who tips his head in agreement. Ben nods his gratitude, and the Council is unsubtle in the least about staring after him as he departs.

~*~

Padawan Depa Billaba is a far cry from the woman Ben remembers. Part of it is that the tweenling has a lopsided Padawan cut, and part of it is that she has yet to adopt her Master’s stern demeanor, and has not seen yet the horrors of war. Her face is still soft, and her curiosity is bright in the Force as she assists him through the tedium of paperwork necessary for the Temple Systems.

“So I have most of the basic info from my Master, but I need a few more detail to get you an Ident Pass.” She explains, typing away at an admin terminal with alarming speed for a human. “Home planet, Master Naasade?”

Ben twitches his fingers, thinking for a moment. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s home planet is listed as Stewjon, but even that isn’t true. Stewjon is merely a placeholder, a point of contact for a rather insular people who live within a very scantily charted nebula. He’d went there once – not into the nebula itself, as that was a good way to never be seen again, but to Stewjon. It was a small world, orbiting a white sun. He’d found fields of dappled grey grass, broken up by iron-red rock formations and the odd spray of pale yellow bell-flowers and milk-blue berries. The people there weren’t settlers, but the watchmen of the nebula, and as he did not speak their silent language, they did not welcome him, for all he shared a remarkable likeness to the humans among them.

It had been a remarkably lonely experience.

“Concord Dawn.” Ben says, feeling his lips twitch. Rako Hardeen had been born on the Mandalore world of Concord Dawn. So had been Jango Fett.

“Date of Birth?”

That requires math, and she offers him an unimpressed raised brow as the answer takes time in coming. Ben shrugs, but as a Councilors Padawan, Depa is no stranger to unusual Council requests.

“Native Language?”

“Mando’a.” Ben replies, because if he had been born on Concord Dawn, that would be true. As it was it was the language of his heart, taught in trust by his men during lulls of battle and long, nights reciting litanies and watching over the wounded. Whispered in quiet prayers by Satine, that long year on the run, and understood only half a lifetime later.

“Okay.” Depa nods, her braid sliding over her shoulder. “That will do for an Ident Pass once we get the gene proof, but you’ll need a full medical work up before we can submit you to the Temple Record and issue your Authorization Codes.”

“Well,” Ben sighs. “I needed to go to the Healer’s anyhow.”

“Good.” Depa replies simply, young and decisive. Ben had never been that decisive at her age. “I can send out a request to the quartermaster now, but it won’t be approved until you have medical clearance.”

Ben nods, and lets the Padawan do so, before she escorts him to the Halls of Healing with all the self-containment and severity of a full-fledged bodyguard. In her presence, this loose-limbed tweenling he’d only ever known as a wise warrior, he doesn’t only feel old – he _is_ old, and he’s not even middle aged.

There is a buoyancy in the energy of the temple that he would not have noticed a lifetime ago, where it is not only filled with light and calm, but with the buzzing brilliance of life, of studious padawans and excited initiates and happy-safe crèchelings and content Masters and adventurous knights and he aches for those days within his own past, never having noticed how all those things slipped away over the years into tension and uncertainty, into determination and weariness, into desperation and disillusion, in those final months. 

Even the Halls of Healing are free of the cloud of sorrow and resignation he remembers as the war-wounded never stopped coming. Instead the Living Force pools thickly and hums of _safe-heal-rest_ , and slightly of the manic energy of the Healer’s themselves. The cream-white-grey color scheme is soothingly neutral, and the Jedi within are confident of their purpose.

As they stride towards the main hub of the ward, a Zeltron Healer whips around, mid-sentence with a protocol-droid, and Ben winced as she zeroed in on him. The Healer had soft red skin, purple-black hair pulled into a high tail, violet eyes, and she practically charged on him and Depa.

Ben pulled his shields in tighter, knowing it was rather useless. Zeltron’s were natural empaths, and all the shielding in the world wouldn’t stop them from knowing how he felt.

“What is wrong with you?” The Healer demands, coming to a halt and crossing her arms. Most Healers, if they carry a lightsaber, have a belt attachment at the small of their back, out of the way. This Healer wore her saber on her hip, which told Ben that this was not a Journeyman Healer of the Circle of Healers, but a Healer-Knight, trained for the field of war. They were the only kind of Healer the Temple trained in those last two years, but once they were so very rare.

“I’m not injured.” Ben says.

“You feel like you’re dying.” She retorts bluntly.

“Master Naasade is here for a complete medical work-up, Healer Ni Hiella.” Depa says astutely. “Perhaps the two of you could settle the matter scientifically.”

“Thank you, Padawan Billaba.” Ben says dryly. Depa nods, apparently missing his irony. “I’ll finish submitting the quartermaster requests, Master Naasade.” She adds, before dismissing herself to the nearest healing garden. Ben mutters at her shadow and has no choice in the matter of Healer Hiella marching him into a screening room. The med-droid on station perks up at their entrance, and the lights slowly come up.

Ben has never met Healer Hiella, that he can recall, but he has heard of her. She and Master Healer Vokara Che had once been counterparts, both initiates and padawans of the same year, they had very parallel careers, and when the time came for Chief Healer Quoorup to retire, they had both written each other glowing and poetic letters of commendation, in the most passive aggressive campaign to get the other elected and save themselves from the nightmare of administration. Healer Che had lost, and rose to the position with grace, and Healer Hiella, from what he had understood, had taken a long assignment on the Outer Rim which had claimed her life well before the Clone Wars.

“You have no medical record.” Ni Hiella frowns, holding a data-pad.

“Hence the comprehensive exam.” Ben replies, as the medical droid insists he divest of his over-tunic and trousers.

“Yet you are a Jedi Master.” She returns flatly, violet eyes narrowed.

“Suffice to say I ceased to exist for very good reason.” Ben equivocates, and shivers as he loses his shirt as well. He’d become unfortunately accustomed to Tatooine’s climate, and the temperate climate control of the Temple seemed too chill by comparison.

The Zeltron makes a hard noise in the back of her throat, but when Ben glances up, she’s turned away from him.

 _Scars_ , he realizes. He has more than a few. More than most seasoned Knights and Masters. Even from his Padawan days, by virtue of whom his Master was, Ben had been sent into some the stickiest situations and on the most difficult missions, becoming a renowned Knight and then Master by sheer virtue of first being forced to keep up with Qui-Gon Jinn, replacing him in his duties, and then having to prove example for and keep up with the Chosen One. He had lightsaber scars from his many encounters with Dooku, Grievous, and Ventress. He had lash-marks from his stint at a Zygerrian slave camp, he had scars from venom-mites and wild beasts and blaster fire and an unnecessary number of explosions and crash-landings, from being wounded too long in fields too far from bacta treatment, and any number of scrapes he had as an apprentice.

He doesn’t realize they are made worse by the weight he hadn’t noticed losing. Hasn’t cared about how clearly he could see his ribs when he simply could not muster up hunger.

“Wait till you see my bloodwork.” Ben says amusedly. She turns back and narrows her eyes at him, as the droid requests that he lay still on the table for more invasive screenings. Ben climbs up and lays flat and tries not to grit his teeth at the way the deep-tissue scanner makes his bones hum. The droid takes a blood sample, and a small hood-device lowers to hover above his head, investigating his brain tissue and neural pathways and activity.

“I’m amazed your biology continues to function, considering its integrity appears critically compromised.” Ni Hiella remarks blandly, studying his genetic make-up, and Ben laughs. “I’m really not joking.”

“I’m well aware.” Ben smiles.

“You also could have mentioned you were a rampant alcoholic.” She adds. “Your poor liver is in a terrible state.”

“I haven’t had a drop in days.” Ben claims defensively.

“How’d the withdrawal go?” She inquires, morbidly curious.

“I deliberately forced my system to purge at an accelerated rate and then proceeded to lose consciousness for twenty hours. My flight-companion was very distressed, and the hangover was atrocious.”

“That is literally the least possible recommended way to handle addiction in Force-users I’ve ever heard of. You could have killed yourself, of which I’m certain you are well aware.” She says crossly.

“A prolonged withdrawal was not a feasible option, and a gradual one was not an _available_ option.” Ben retorts, not having had the foresight to stock up on alcohol before they left Tatooine, partially because he was unwilling to ask Shmi to return the credits to him so that he could do so.

“I’m adding a warning tag to your file.” Ni Hiella mutters, flicking her long tail of hair back over her shoulder. She has a narrow frame and a narrow face, typical of her species, but she’s tall, for a Zeltron. Half a head taller than Ben, at least. “Any allergies we should be aware of, or shall I have better luck just issuing a full panel?”

“Oh, there are several.” Ben says grimly. “Including a variety of vaccinations.”

Not to the vaccinations themselves, the Healers had learned, after putting General Kenobi out of commission four times in attempts to prevent him from catching whatever was spreading in that particular battle-zone. Instead, he had the great joy of being allergic to one of the protein carriers they’d used in the hurried development of almost three hundred brand new medical treatments. Luckily they had finally figured out what it was, and had then only given him second run variants of the vaccines, and trusted that having had all his troops vaccinated would hopefully protect him in the meantime.

Ni Hiella directs the droid to do the allergy panel, which is an uncomfortable process.

“By Zeltrossi…”She murmurs, and Ben glances over to see she’s pulled up a display of his skeletal system. The sheer amount of fracture data has to be stripped into layers to even be read. “What were you doing in the last decade that broke that many bones?” She turns on him, as if it were his fault. He hadn’t exactly done it to _himself_. “And how did you even survive? There is an absolute minimum of scar calcification which I wouldn’t consider possible given the hyper-active tissue of your species so…what was the treatment you were using?”

“Something called Bacta.” Ben says vaguely, figuring it can’t hurt. It won’t be a galactic export for another decade, but he knows that the system of origin has been producing it for eons. They’d just stopped exporting it a millennia ago, after the last Sith War nearly depleted their planetary resources to the brink of disaster.

Ni Hiella seems to grow more and more peevish, as terrible results pile up over horrific scans, but Ben can only find himself amused. Every broken bone, after all, simply grew stronger.

“You are a sock drawer thrown in a trash compactor.” She mutters irritably.

“Thank you.” Ben replies, earning another peeved look.

“You need a dedicated Healer.” She then says, to which Ben replies “No.”

“I’m serious, Master Naasade.” She faces him fully, every inch of a Healer-Knight. “If you have any medical complication at all, we could kill you by sheer accident for simply being unfamiliar with the existing complications present in your system. Having your medical record will _not_ be enough, particularly if you come in as a trauma case. You have three replacement organs, two of which I cannot identify the manufacturer of, a pair synthetic nerve clusters unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and one artificial inner ear whose patent doesn’t seem to exist; your DNA and RNA structure is _riddled_ with foreign packets, and there are trace elements of toxic compounds _I can’t even identify_ in your blood stream and tissue samples. Dare I even ask about a potential psychological evaluation? Possibly therapy? Because whatever you have been through has no doubt made just as much of a mess inside your head as it has of your body.”

“I will be declining to visit the Mind-Healers, Healer Hiella.” Ben replies quietly. “But perhaps I will concede to the prior request, given…due consideration.”

She scoffs. “You are the epitome of gracious surrender, Maser Naasade.” She says unamused. “Perhaps I should assign you to my Padawan. No doubt you’ll eventually need such intervention it can qualify as his Healer’s Test.”

“That…is unkind on so many levels.” Ben protests.

“It’s done.” Ni Hiella says sharply, tapping on the pad. “I’ve already done it. I’ll introduce you as soon as he’s finished surgically removing detonators from a pair of survivors.”

“Actually…the individuals in question are companions of mine.” Ben comments, earning her attentive focus. “Could we not go to them as opposed to the other way around?” He requests, folding his over-tunic back around himself as the medical droid releases him.

“By all means.” Ni Hiella nods, waiting for him to slip back into his boots. Her eyes judge his clothes just as critically as the scanners judges his body, taking in the cracking soles of his boots, the sand-whipped threadbare quality of his tunics, the patched and repatched knees. Ben has a sudden trepidation about what she sees in his face. The _Red Kettle_ did not have a mirror in its ‘fresher, and Ben had never acquired one on Tatooine.

Ben manages his boots and runs his fingers through his beard as he stands upright. It’s longer than he prefers, and scraggily for lack of grooming, and his hair brushes his shoulders because he finds it easier to tie back than cut off, particularly given that the length protects his scalp from the scorching of Tatooines twin suns. He wonders if his appearance didn’t frighten Shmi, if it didn’t lend to her unease, as much as his simply being a male stranger did.

Ni Hiella guides him through the Halls of Healing to the surgical suits.

“Will it scar?” He hears, in the high, tremulous tone only three year olds seemed to muster, and they round a doorway and see them. Shmi has her arms wrapped around herself, in a plain undyed dress but with a deep berry colored shawl pulled around her shoulders, standing by the bio-bed. Anakin, on the bio-bed, was prodding at the shiny red line on his leg, his tongue sticking out.

“Ben!” He chirps, looking up at their presence. “Ben! They too’ it out, so I won’ blow up. Was in my leg. Think I’d have lived if I’da run.” This is perhaps the cleanest Basic Ben has heard from the boy, but he’s not unaware that their first few days were full of shy silence more than inability to speak. Furthermore, he and Shmi are radiating enough _relief-shock-joy_ that he’s amazed the youngling isn’t jumping up and down just to spend the energy.

Then, of course, his words process.

_I think I’d have lived if I’da run._

The rush of black vision and white noise creeps up on him from the side, floods through, and rushes back out as quickly as it came. With Anakin’s power, and Ben had judged so much on a scale of _Anakin_ , that would have been a rage that could crush worlds. He’d felt it before, the desire to rend horrible places and the horrible people that made them to dust, he suspects that Anakin has acted on it, more than once, but Ben reminds himself that innocent people tend to live there too, and pushes all the fury into pure sensation, until the emotion fades and all he is left with is energy, and a clear mind with which to use it.

Ben might have said _I’m glad you didn’t try_ , but he’s lived on Tatooine long enough now to know how insulting that is. Beru had told him who the Unfettered were. Like Leia the Great Krayt Dragon, they broke their own chains. They were the ones who ran and gambled death, rather than continue to live in bondage.

“I’m glad you didn’t have to.” Ben says instead.

“Me too!” Anakin grins, full of delight.

“Master Naasade,” Ni Hiella calls his attention. “If I may introduce you to my Padawan and your future Healer, Essja Chias”

The padawan in question has just stepped back into the room from sterilizing himself and his equipment after their minor surgical performance, and Ben experiences a strange double vision before memory fades in the face of reality. The Pantoran padawan reminds him greatly of one young Riyo Chuchi, the blue skinned boy having similar pastel lavender hair and pale yellow eyes. Unlike Senator Chuchi, his gold tattoos form a thin line from the top of his brow to the tip of his nose, and then a series of circles below his lip. Being a Healer’s Padawan, his Padawan cut is far better groomed than most, and judging by the length his Master has allowed it to reach, he’s a Healer very near his Test. A Healers Test was not like a Knight’s Trials. A Knight’s Trials tested the spirit, capability, and the faith. A Healer’s Test challenged the will, as well as the student’s skill. A Healer could display technical mastery and fail to push far enough to save a patient. Or worse, push too far, beyond ethics and morality and conscience, cause undue suffering to prove sheer talent in saving their patient, and fail just the same.

A Healer-Knight faced both.

Being the proposed subject of this particular Healer’s future Test, Ben wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about the matter.

“Master.” Padawan Chias bows to him, and Ben jerks his head in a nodding response. The padawan has a more confident presence than the young Senator Chuchi had, when he first met her, but the observant curiosity in his gaze felt just the same.

“I’m assigning you to be his primary Healer, under my supervision.” His Master states bluntly, and the padawan jerks where he stands, eyes widening before narrowing critically, first on his Master and then on his patient. Ben reaches out and Anakin happily clambers into his arms, so Ben could shield himself with the boy.

“Ah.” Essja mutters softly. “I hope I _won’t_ be seeing you.”

“Likewise.” Ben agrees.


	5. Chapter 5

Padawan Billaba doesn’t bat an eye when Ben returns with the Skywalkers in toe.

“I’ve secured your Ident Pass and Authorization Codes for the Temple, Master Naasade, and you are being folded into the Archives as we speak. Your clearance is unrestricted for a Master of your rank, and the quartermaster has found you a room assignment, if you would like to visit the storeroom and pick up your living necessities. And your clothing allowance.” She adds the last without so much as a twitch, and Ben still gives her a short look for the unsubtle judgement inherent in her suggestion. She has the grace to flush faintly, and hand him the datapad.

“Lady Shmi, would you and Anakin join me for lunch, or prefer to rest awhile before venturing the Temple Halls?” Ben asks, and is rewarded with the flat look of a mother who has sent the better of a week in a very small space. “I’ll escort you to one of the Commissaries.” Ben bows sheepishly.

“Do you need a guide, Master Naasade?” Depa inquires, a little hopefully.

“I do not, Padawan Billaba.” Ben chuckles a little. “I’m afraid I have to release you back to your regular duties.” As a Council Padawan on a Session day, that likely included a lot of sitting and waiting at the Council Admittance Desk, and filing paperwork.

“Yes, Master.” She bows shortly and stalks off, reminding him a little more of the woman she’ll become.

Ben and Shmi perform a small dance as she attempts to follow in his shadow and he keeps slowing to allow her to walk beside him until she finally and deliberately steps hard on his heel and then walks at his elbow, Anakin in her arms.

“They call you Master.” She says quietly, her jaw set and her grip on Anakin a fierce one.

“It is a rank. Among the Jedi, we proceed through a series of titles, given our age and experience and wisdom.” Ben explain.  “Our youngest are Crèchelings, until they are old enough for formal classes and tuteleage, and then they become Initiates. Initiates chosen by a teacher within the Order become Padawan Learners, and those who are not enter the Service Corps, to receive technical training for various fields depending on their talents. We have a Medical Corps, who work with our Healers and develop medicines and treatments and provide aide for worlds in need of their skills; an Agricultural Corps, who work on food development, farming techniques, crop enhancement, and similar ventures; an Educational Corps, who provide travelling teachers and instructors galaxy wide and often assist planets with assimilation into the Republic; and we have the Exlporatory Corps, who make up many of the pilots and mechanics who assist the Jedi on our missions, and help chart star systems and new hyperspace lanes. When a Padawan graduates, they become either a Guardian, whose skills and talents lay in battle, a Consular, whose skills lay in diplomacy and study of the Force, such as archivists or healers, or a Sentinel, who follows a middle ground between the two, and is often far more…subtle. After training a Padawan of their own, or by making great contributions to their field or to the study of the Force, a Jedi achieves the title of Master, in recognition of their wisdom.” Ben explains slowly, giving her a chance to process as he speaks. “It is not a title granted to measure ones authority over others, but ones skills and knowledge which due them credit.”

Shi is quiet for a long moment, letting her eyes follow along the light-filled corridors, and along the tall, sweeping ceilings. “How do they know you are a Master?” She asks aptly. “They have never met you.”

“They can feel it in the Force.” Ben says. “There is a certain sense about Jedi who have attained Mastery, a certain feel to their presence and connection to the Force, that is either a sign they are a Master or are ready to be. In this place, Shmi, the title Master means ‘one who has mastered themself’.”

“But the young ones must cut their hair and do as instructed by their teacher, and call them Master above all others.” Shmi says. “Is that not servitude?”

Ben stops walking and turns to her. “Oh. Oh, Shmi, no. Well, yes, but…” Ben steps aside, pulling himself out of the center of the corridor. She watches him with dark, sharp eyes. “Shmi, when I was fourteen I left the Jedi Order. I had found a cause that conflicted with what my Master had decided, and so I parted ways with him. There was a conflict on another world, and I had chosen to stay and help them fight while he left. When the conflict seemed over, the Jedi returned once more to help mediate the two sides through their fragile peace. There is…more to this story, and it is sad, but in the end, when the Jedi were to leave again, I was asked if I would return to the Jedi Order, and I chose to. It was my choice.”

“The young healer said the Jedi are brought to the Temple as younglings, often too small to remember their own worlds. Is it a choice when you know nothing else?” Shmi counters. “There are a thousand ways to be enslaved.”

“Yes. It is not an easy choice, but it is still a choice.” Ben assures her. “Any Jedi could set their lightsaber down and choose to walk away. Choose a different life, an easier life. Even the young, though their choices are more limited.”

“Why?”

Ben sighs, gathering himself. “It is often a point of contention that the Jedi take younglings into the crèche, but it is also a misrepresentation to say we _take_ them. Shmi, you have hemmed in Anakin’s abilities his entire life, and part of it is that you are his mother, and part of it is that you also have power. Imagine if you could not.”

Shmi frowns, shifting uneasily.

“There are some races who are all born Force-sensitive, and so for them to raise their children to control their abilities is an easy task, but there are others, many others, for whom raising a Force-sensitive child is beyond their capability. When they are very young, those with the potential for great power can pull small things across the room, and flood a house with their emotions. By the time they can walk and run and speak, they are often capable of breaking things without touching them, of lashing out with enough strength to knock a full grown adult over. By the time a child is six or seven, they can tear a roof down with the strength of an unchecked temper, if they’re strong enough, or tear through the natural mental state of weaker-minded person, such as a fellow child, and do them serious harm.” Ben knows Anakin was far, far stronger than that, and at ten, the Council treated him very poorly for it. “We take in children who are very young so that they can be trained very young, so that they don’t hurt others, or themselves with their abilities. It may seem unkind, but it is necessary. Children who are not found early in life are often referred, if necessary, to one of the Service Corps, so that they can be taught some control over their abilities, or they are referred a tutor from the Education Corps, who can visit their home and teach them and their families certain techniques for honing their capabilities and for curbing their accidents. Adults who are self-trained are generally referred to as Rogue Force-Users, and many of them are dangerous because their abilities can so easily be turned towards…less civilized purposes.”

Shmi thinks that over, smoothing down Anakin’s hair, and eventually nods.

“So as to why younglings choices are more limited, it is because, in effect, the Jedi have become their parents, and once they are turned over to the Temple, we are responsible for them until they reach their species majority. It is why children who do not become padawans are instead assigned to a Service Corps, to be taught valuable trade skills and to continue to hone their abilities in ways that can be used in the day to day environment – encouraging plants to grow, enhancing the reflexes of a pilot, improving the cognitive abilities of teachers and researchers, and other such trades. This way, when they reach their majority, they have a solid education and marketable skills with which they may choose to do however they please for the rest of their lives, be it to continue the work of the Corps, or to go out into the galaxy and try their luck.”

“Why not return to their families?” Shmi asks.

“Some do. Their families can claim them from the Corps if they wish to.” Ben replies. “And some families…don’t want them back.” Ben’s family hadn’t even left him with their names, when they gave him up. He hadn’t even been six months old. “And it isn’t a decision their families make quickly. Jedi on Search will make note a youngling’s Force-capabilities often while they are still infants, and discuss their potential futures with their parents, who will then have some years to decide. Very rarely is a child found and taken abruptly, and often the case is because the parents are aware of the Jedi practice and intended to hand them over, or because…because the parents are too willing to part with a child who can do things beyond their comprehension, once the option is laid before them.”

“But their families can’t know them, once they’ve given them up?” Shmi asks, sounding small and defeated, and Ben suddenly realizes why this interrogation has taken place. She knows, perhaps better than he can realize, that Anakin is powerful, and that the Jedi Temple may be the best place for him. Why else, after all, must she think Ben brought them here?

“Some Masters would discourage it. Some would discourage it strongly, but it is _not_ forbidden. Families may visit their child at the Temple, or pass along communications, if they desire, but it often a strain on both parties. Jedi live a very different life.” Ben explains. “And it makes the lessons on Attachment…difficult.”

Shmi gives him a questioning look, and he asks her to question him on the Code another time. She agrees, and Ben sighs in relief, before finally managing to get them all to a Dining Hall.

~*~

The store room is a quaint little name for the four levels in the south tower over which the Quartermaster, a legion of maintanence droids, and a small workforce of Coruscanti employees preside, containing the collective odds and ends possessions that have come to the Temple as gifts, surplus, donations, or through the hands of Jedi who tend to acquire random detris and possessions throughout the course of their missions. This includes everything from blankets to exotic art pieces to aquatic snapping slugs. Qui-Gon, Ben remembers less than fondly, had a knack for acquiring _living_ things over the course of his apprenticeship. Typically things that bit, or chewed through Ben’s possessions, or gave birth in Ben’s bed, or which Ben turned out to be allergic to. Yoda had solemnly _sworn_ that Qui-Gon had not known the fern he’d given Ben was poisonous, and that his Master had not been trying to dispose of him, but Ben had never trusted anything Qui-Gon picked up ever again.

“Master Naasade, I’ll tell you three more times if I have to, Padawan Billaba did not requisition for an additional set of living quarters.” Quartermaster Thee Thaa Yrrsim said nasally, the unusually skinny Besalisk flapping all four hands. “I can only do so many things at once.”

“Are we not staying with you?” Shmi inquired hesitantly, trying to keep hold of Anankins hand as the little boy attempted to dart away to explore the maze of shelving stacks beyond them, and all the treasures they held.

“I had thought you might prefer your privacy, Lady Shmi.” Ben says softly, matching her quiet tones out of habit. “It hasn’t escaped my notice that I make you uncomfortable.”

“You will not hurt me.” She says with a certain finality that surprises him. For a moment, he can see her real face, resolved and determined. “I do not want to hide away because I am afraid. I do not want _to be_ afraid.” She tells him. “And you are a good man for Anakin to follow. We should stay with you.” She pauses, and affirms herself that it is her choice to make. “We _will_ stay with you, if there is room for us.” She looks at the Quartermaster, who flaps his lower hands again and shrugs his upper shoulders.

“He’s assigned a Master’s suite. It’s got a Padawan room in it.” The Quartermaster says.

Ben, meanwhile, has turned away from Shmi and pressed a hand to his face, because she cannot know what she has said, cannot have cut deeper into the things that wound him most if she had tried.

“Anakin!” Shmi clips shortly, and Ben turns, because Shmi does not shout, slaves do not raise their voices, but all the slave-mother knew how to make them carry. Sure enough, the youngling has finally wriggled free and darted off into the mezzanine of _stuff_.

Ben jolts forward after the boy, who shrieks when he realizes he’s being chased, and starts running faster, giggling the whole time, dancing around corners and scrambling over a cleaning droid and diving into a pile of decorative cushions before Ben manages to dig him out.

“Come out, come out, little mouse!” Ben teases, catching him by a kicking foot as he tries to burrow deeper into the pillows.

“Nooo!” Anakin whines, and then shrieks when Ben tickles is little foot, and surrenders, letting Ben pull him from the pile, though he comes up clutching an egg shaped, beaded blue pillow, and a sausage-shaped yellow one, with tassles on the ends.

“Mine!” Anakin declares, clutching them to his little chest.

“If you wish.” Ben agrees, scooping the boy up into the crook of an arm before carrying him back towards his mother, who had been lent a luggage-droid, which clomps along in her wake as she followed their path. Ben swings Anakin around in an arc and then desposits him and his cushions in the cart on the droids back.

“Is he allowed to take those?” Shmi asks worriedly.

“Oh yes, we’re allowed to take anything from the store room to furnish our quarters, so long as we allow the Quartermaster to review the inventory. Jedi do not own anything personally, and so it will all be returned here when we no longer need it.”

“And the inventory is so they know you do not steal things to keep?” Shmi guesses.

“Oh, no!” Ben chuckles. “The inventory is because some clumsy Padawan once displaced the Crown of the Royal House of Alderaan in among the Jedi’s collective possessions, where it apparently remained for five years before discovery. We pick up the _oddest_ things.”

Shmi smiles, though her brow wrinkles in confusion. They are shortly retrieved by a Quartermaster’s assistant, one of the Coruscanti employees possessing a data-pad and a learned sense of direction among the stacks. The green-skinned Twi’lek assists them in acquiring a box of soaps, lotion, and oils for their respective grooming needs, as well as towels and sheets, which were simply ordered from a Textile Printer, and then refused to leave the Textile Printers without haranguing Ben into acquiring new clothes, after Shmi had begged off, citing that she had recently purchased her own.

“C’mon, Master, you can’t keep going around the great Jedi temple looking like a backwater hermit!” The Twi’lek grinned brightly. “Pick a color!”

“Brown.” Ben said flatly.

“Pick a different color!” The Twi’lek tries again, gesturing to the chromatic display on the printer. Shmi’s hand flashes out and she taps two before retracting her hand just as quickly. The Twi’lek eyes her sourly. “You couldn’t have gotten him a little further from brown and beige?” He whines.

Ben stares at the two shades. Soft orange and low red, the two colors of 212th Legion.

“Those will do.” Ben says quietly. The Twi’lek grumbles, but accedes to the look on Ben’s face, and waves a scanner arm in Ben’s general vicinity to take his measurements.

“Shoes too?”

“Boots and soft soled slippers.” Ben replies, out of habit.

“It’ll take a bit longer for the clothes. You wanna look around for more comfort items? You all still need kitchenware, and you really should pick out a few blankets.” The Twi’lek, who has not offered his name, suggests, and Ben follows because Shmi does.

They let Anakin pick their plates, bowls and cups, and so end up with each one being a mismatched piece in various bright colors, but it makes the youngling happy. Ben peruses the store rooms collection of tea kettles long enough that Shmi gets impatient, and finally chooses a bulbous silver one engraved with flowers that remind him of Naboo. Regardless of how it all came to an end, Ben does have fond memories of Padme Naberrie, and chief among them was her uncanny ability to always have a cup of a new exotic tea for him to try.

Shmi, on the other hand, takes a long time running her fingers over blanket seams, each of them treated with an odd reverence, which puzzles Ben until he realizes that she can feel the echoes of those who held them before her. Younglings and Elder’s and Knights and Masters. The comfort of the echoes of their Force held within the fabric was one of the reasons blankets were not merely recycled new. To the Jedi, new things had a dullness to them, a lack of presence, which could be disquieting.

She chooses a large, thickly padded quilt of dark green, blue and plum colors, and a lighter, knit blanket of soft white and golden-yellow. Ben finds himself drawn to one that is a thousand shades of grey between white and black and nearly shimmers to look at. It is also, he notes contentedly, a sheer indulgence to the touch.

The Twi’lek tries to convince them to peruse the art, but Ben begs off on that because they have yet to even see their new quarters, and instead they get lead into furniture acquisition. Shmi immediately looks doubtful.

“They’ll be delivered by the droids.” The Twi’lek reassures her, catching the look.

Anakin happily climbs on and over a variety of chairs, from massive hunks of coral to slippery, impossible curves of felucian wicker, to squat blocky constructions.

Both Ben and Shmi find themselves particularly taken with a low round table of pure gleaming white quartz, with the same vague design as a mushroom, and then spend an hour trying to find compatible seats, which in the end result in kneeling cushions, and a small stool for Anakin, as nothing else was quite the right height.

By the time they are even considering a couch, or even a shelving unit, Anakin has clearly worn himself out of energy, and is now cranky and tired, and so they forgo further exploration, and hurry back to the Quartermaster’s office, collecting Ben’s new parcel of clothes on the way.

Finding their new set of quarters proves almost as difficult as finding their way through the stacks, and Anakin is crying quietly, because he’s tired and he doesn’t want to be tired. Ben apologizes profusely, but Shmi just sighs.

Ben has to re-enter his new authorization codes four times before he gets them right, and they stumble into their quarters with relief. Ben’s relief is short lived, however, by the sudden and overwhelming appearance of plants.

“Oh no.” He mutters. Delicately tendriled, pale grey, pink spotted, bioluminescent vines creep out of a box frame around the window, over the walls, and across the ceiling, occasionally dotted with sprays of white, bulb-like flowers. In every open corner, a silver barked, white-leafed tree grows at perfect angles, surrounded by smaller square pots bursting with red and purple ferns.

“It’s beautiful.” Shmi whispers, and Ben realizes that he has just utterly and completely lost any chance he had of removing them.


	6. Chapter 6

Ben is dismayed to discover that the Twi’lek quartermaster’s assistant had done more than force him into more vibrant colors. Not a one of his shirts is done in plain solid shades, and while Ben has often admired the delicate patterns and vibrant details which adorned those few Senators he would call friends, he has never wanted to emulate their example.

The high collar shirt he finally conceded to had a sweeping, swirling pattern of soft reds and oranges which reminded him of the storms on Tatooine, and otherwise did an excellent job of making him uncomfortable in their vibrancy. Anakin may have been fond of Nubian maroons and purples as a knight, but at least he had settled for muted, solid colors. Ben’s neck and shirtsleeves, on the other hand, were made all the more vibrant by his pale cream overtunic, and he forwent a robe entirely because his options were displeasing.

By the time he had painstakingly arranged the folds of his tunic and tabards and belts, Ben had been procrastinating his own reflection for at least half an hour and finally drags himself towards the fresher, absently noting Shmi’s presence in the small kitchen as he passed.

The image he had so feared was not there at all. He did not see a General, a failed Master. The man in his reflection was old, far older than he ought to have been, face half hidden by unkempt beard and snarled hair, bleached of color by the unforgiving rays of Tatooine’s suns, his skin sand-strafed and wind-beaten, exaggerating the lines of his face. Only the blue of his eyes remained the same, edged with grey and flecked with green.

The man in his reflections merely looked tired and defeated. Ben sighed, and rummaged through the crate of toiletries they’d collected, pleased when he did come up with a set of sonic trimmers and a comb.

It seems four years is not long enough to forget the familiar motion of grooming his beard to its preferred length from the Clone Wars, remembering the gentle brush of Satine’s fingers, and her wistful comment that it hid too much of his face. That was precisely the point. He’d been a too-young knight with a too-old Padawan, and by the time Anakin had hit his growth spurt, the beard had been necessary to help discern between the ages of the student and the teacher.

Pulling a comb through his tangled hair without the assistance of electro-static is difficult and rather painful, but Ben grits his teeth and does it because he hadn’t even thought about grooming supplies while they had been in the store-room beyond the most basic. Trimming his hair is a more tedious affair, as cutting it short would only remind him too much of the wars. Instead, he cuts it back to the length he’d worn before the galaxy fell to pieces, and in doing so removes much of the frayed, bleached out color which had aged him so, returning his hair to its natural cinnamon.

Ben cleans his face and neck with a towel, and when he looks again he can actually recognize the man looking back at him, beaten down, but not so utterly without hope, and not so terribly old and frail for his years. The edges of his face are sharper than he recalls, as Tatooine and apathy had stripped him of weight he could probably not have afforded to lose, and his skin is darker for having had its battles with desert suns. He does not look quite like Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the name Ben fits this face more easily. It will do, he decides, and braves their plant infested quarters once more. That there are miniature sconces of flowering moss adorning the trim edges of the mirror has not escaped his notice.

“ _Ben_!”

Ben jerks, startling at the high-pitched shout assaulting him immediately upon his exit of the fresher, and he looks down to find Anakin with his face upturned, trailing his yellow and white blanket like a shroud.

“Anakin.” Ben replies, willing his heart to stop hammering and his grip on the doorway to unclench.

“Amu made tea.” The youngling mulishly reports, and then lifts his arms in an ‘ _up_!’ gesture. Despite his improving Basic, the boy seems fixed in his refusal to trade ‘Amu’ for ‘Mom’.

“Ah.” Ben says, stooping to lift the boy. “Thank you for telling me.” Even if he had scared the daylights out of the former High General.

Shmi startles, badly, when Ben enters the kitchen, and it is Ben’s instinctive reaction, when the tea-tray in her hands jerks and flings its contents, to flash out a hand and make it _stop_. Cups, saucers, the pot, and the overturned milk all remain midair, held in place with the Force, and Shmi calmly pulls them back into order on her tray, apparently unaffected by scooping the milk out of the air and back into its proper vessel. Ben lets his grip on the Force fade away, and Shmi looks him straight in the face, studying his features, now that they are revealed to her. Slowly, he relaxes, offers him a nod, and leads the way into the sitting room, settling herself down at the low stone table that fits perfectly into the curved, pale-planted space.

She lets him swallow his first sip of tea before she asks him to explain what he meant the day before, about attachments.

“The Jedi believe that attachments lead to fear, and fear leads to anger, and anger leads to the Dark Side, and so forbids them, in order to protect ourselves from the temptation. But the true lesson one must learn, and that we are so poor at teaching, is that attachments themselves are not wrong. It is okay to care. It is even okay to love. Where we fail, is when we care so much, love so much, that we cannot let those attachments go.” He holds up a hand, forstalling her protest. “I do not mean let go as in to stop feeling them, to stop having them, but in the ability one has to do their sworn duty above all else. As a Jedi Knight, we take vows that swear our allegiance first and foremost to the Galaxy itself, and no other may come first. Not a family, not a lover, not a friend. If we are called, we must go. ”

Shmi’s expression gives nothing away, as she sips her tea and Ben savors his.

“A Jedi is a Jedi, first and foremost, and only. For a Jedi to divide his attention between the will of the Force and the will of others is to invite disaster.”

“Furthermore…” Ben hesitates, letting regret wash over him, and pass. “Love is a powerful force, but if we choose to love one, above all others, the things we would do for them, with our power, could be so devastating. What parent would not kill for their child? And how easy would it be, when all you have to do is raise a hand and focus, and snuff out their life with the Force? Who would not steal, to feed their people, and who could stop a thief who can hold you powerless to move against them? And what of war? When one individual can level battlefields, if they don’t care who dies as consequence? We could so easily be monsters, Shmi Skywalker.” Ben admits wearily. “It is why we are sworn to peace, why we sacrifice so much, and why we give our hearts to a galaxy at large that never quite seems to give them back. We must learn to let go, or risk crushing those precious things we try to so tightly hold onto.”

“I love my son.” Shmi tells him, after reflecting on what he has told her. “But if you could not have freed us both, I would have let him go. It would break my heart, and crush my soul, but I would have let him go. This I understand.” She is a quiet a moment, and continues. “I hate them. The ones who hurt us. The depur who enslaved us. The ones who were free and did nothing to help us. There was so much out there, and we had so very little. I hate, and it is a part of who I am.” Shmi explains slowly. “But I did not teach this to Anakin. Hate would keep him alive, as it has kept me alive, and many others. It is stronger than hope, for most of our people. But I did not teach him hate. It is a lesson he will learn from the world, but from me I wanted him to know love. I tried to teach him compassion. To share what little we have, to accept kindness, and know when _not_ to accept kindness, because sometimes it comes with a price, and that price can be more than a soul can bear. The slavers have power.” Shmi shivers at the memory. “And Anakin has power. I knew one day he would…not be contained, and I could not protect him. So if I could give him so little in this life I wished to give him one thing: We are not slavers. We do not act like them. They are greedy and cruel and care nothing for others.”

“I was afraid of what he could be.” Shmi admits, while Anakin nibbles on a bread ration and watches them curiously, not understanding their conversation. “This is…this is what the Jedi fear too, is it not? You fear what you could be.”

“Yes.” Ben tells her.

~*~

As tea and leftover travel rations are the only thing they have stocked in their cupboards, the trio once more venture out into the Temple, and Ben tries to cross navigate to the nearest Dining Hall because he has lived on the other side of the Temple all his life, and the new room assignment feels backwards. Anakin is dressed in the same soft white clothes all the Crechelings share, and Shmi has a green shawl wrapped around another undyed grey dress.

He wants to take them to the Room of a Thousand Fountain after breakfast, because the uniformity of a city-scape like Coruscant is not dramatically different from the uniformity of a desert world, and Ben wants to show them that there is more to the galaxy. He wants to let them explore ponds and gardens and see a waterfall for the first time.

Ben is preoccupied with this rather pleasant thought, and so does not sense what lies before him as he guides his charges into the Dining Hall.

“I don’t want to say goodbye, Obi-Wan!” Bant sniffles, the pink Mon Calamari’s bass voice carrying. “You shouldn’t be leaving! It’s not fair!”

“No Knight will take me.” Obi-Wan mutters. “Master Yoda says it’s only the will of the Force, and that my talents lie elsewhere. I know what he means. I’m _useless_.”

“No one is useless.” Shmi says swiftly, and firmly, stepping aside and laying a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. She’s a young woman, when she isn’t hiding (and she is never not hiding), but she is a slave-mother, and slave-mother’s followed Ar-Amu. All children where their children. “You are a person and you have value, as all people do.”

The Initiates startle, looking nervous and contrite over their topic of conversation.

“Sorry.” Obi-Wan mutters, looking down. “I didn’t mean it.” He lies, and Ben knows he lies.

At almost thirteen, Obi-Wan Kenobi is small for his age, with a thick lop of deep red hair, and vivid ocean eyes that seem slightly too large for his wan face. His emotions are kept off his face, but anger and despair waft off the boy. The Master’s had believed it meant him close to the Dark Side, and failed to understand that those emotions did not lash out, but turned in, that Obi-Wan would destroy himself before he turned against anyone else.

“You are being sent away?” Shmi asks, in her lilting voice with an accent no Temple Initiate has ever heard.

“Yes ma’am.” Obi-Wan nods miserably. “There is no one to teach me.”

Shmi looks incredulous, her dark, sharp gaze casting around to the many Jedi in the room, Master’s and Knights steadily dotted in among the Padawan’s and Initiates.

“A Knight or Master may only raise one Padawan Learner at a time.” Ben explains, still disconcerted by watching his younger self, and remembering unfondly the time he hallucinated an out of body experience.

Her brows draw in and she give him an inscrutable but judging look before she nods, quick as a bird turning in flight. “You have no student.” She points out, and Obi-Wan looks up through his lashes, although too spurned by prior experience to truly be hopeful.

“Obi-Wan is a good initiate! He tries really hard!” Bant chimes in. “And he’s really kind!” Reeft adds from her left, where he’s been hiding from the adults in her shadow.

“Do or do not.” Obi-Wan mutters bitterly. “There is no try.”

Shmi tilts her head oddly. “There is no want. There is no need.” She says. “There is only what _must be_.”

Ben gapes at her, as do the initiates. It is a slaves lesson, but in terms of the Force, it is a much clearer path towards understanding than Yoda’s adage. Slow realization dawns on Obi-Wan’s skeptical face, and he bows his head in gratitude for the lesson.

“Initiates, have you had your breakfast?”

“Obi-Wan didn’t want to eat.” Bant replies, and then flushes deeply for having blurted that out. She shoots her friend a guilty look.

“Loss of appetite in unpleasant circumstances is not uncommon.” Ben explains rationally. “But it can be unhealthy. Once we’ve all collected our trays, would you mind terribly if Lady Skywalker, her son and I joined you at your table?”

The gaggle of Initiates nods eagerly, except for Obi-Wan, who eyes him suspiciously. Ben offers him a bland smile is rewarded with a scowl that is all too familiar. The youngling darts off after his friends, while Ben and Shmi follow more sedately.

“Why can a Knight not teach more than one Padawan?” Shmi inquires.

“It is believed that multiple students deny each other the Master’s undivided attention, and that their nurturing suffers for it.”

“As single parents always give all effort to only children, and mothers never can raise properly two or more?” Shmi inquires wryly, before cringing and then smoothing her own cringe away, reminding herself that she is safe here.

“I’m not saying I completely agree, but there is also a matter of danger, more so than of neglect. In the field, it can be difficult to keep track of and protect a single Padawan, who is less experienced and more vulnerable. Trying to shield more than one student, _and_ anyone else whose safety may be your responsibility is a lot to ask of anyone.” Ben explains, knowing without doubt that had Qui-Gon had another apprentice alongside Ben, it is unlikely both of them would have survived to Knighthood. “And that is not even considering that competition between a single Master’s padawans could end poorly for all three parties. The rivalry of the young can have disastrous consequences, and that’s even when the adult in the room is _not_ encouraging it.” Xanatos hadn’t been Qui-Gon’s apprentice in more than a decade when Qui-Gon became his master, and yet Ben had never escaped the older Padawan’s shadow.

“Then why not allow the addition of a younger Padawan only to those whose Padawan’s are nearly Knights?” Shmi counters. “Or whose assignments are not nearly so dangerous?”

“It has been argued.” Ben replies neutrally. They reach the line and drop the discussion in favor of attempting to serve themselves dishes of digestive compatability. Ben does not comments on Shmi’s choice of pan-fried grubs, and she does not judge him for putting no less than three cups of caff on his tray, considering he’s already had two cups of tea.

They join the Initiates, Anakin wiggling his way out of his mothers grip to scoot along the bench seat and carefully pick up one berry at a time out of the bowl on his mothers tray and eat it.

“Are you an Ambassador, Lady Shmi?” Garen inquires politely, the human boy having served himself mostly pudding.

Shmi blinks at the question. So does Ben.

“I am not.” Shmi replies eventually, Reeft watching in horrified fascination as she delicately picks up a grub with her chop sticks and pops it in her mouth, a small snap occurring when she bites down that makes the Dresselian boy turn a little green.

“Is your son going to join the crèche?” Bant inquires. “Is that why you’re here?”

“I have not decided.” Shmi replies, though she looks worried of her response. “We are here because Jedi Naasade has helped us.”

“Were you in trouble?” Garen perks up. “Was it pirates?”

Anakin has managed to scoot himself down the bench until he is across from Obi-Wan, who is staring mulishly at the single muffin on his plate with an air of dejection. Slowly, in what he apparently considers to be sneaky, Anakin reaches over the table and pries one of the green berries out of the muffin and then hurriedly crams it in his mouth. Obi-Wan’s brow crinkles, and then his lips twitch a little towards a smile. And Anakin does it again. Slowly, all the while staring back at Obi-Wan with wide, totally innocent eyes.

“We were slaves, and Jedi Naasade has brought us to freedom.” Shmi answers them, nothing of her feelings in her voice.

“Oh.” Garen gulps, fidgeting awkwardly as he tries to think of something adequate to say to that.

“Slavery is evil.” Bant declares. “And I am glad you are with us now.”

Shmi smiles at the girl. “So am I.”

Ben knows he has been outmaneuvered by fate at the reminder of what awaits Obi-Wan, if he goes. Qui-Gon Jinn’s ultimate retraction of his utter determination to deny the boy his apprenticeship aside, what Obi-Wan faced in those short few weeks – emotionally and physically – was his first and worst Trial. It left him with insecurities and doubts that would never leave, and an unerring tendency towards self-sacrifice and self-destruction which had fractured his relationships – with Qui-Gon, with Anakin, with Ahsoka, with Satine – more than once.

“Initiate Kenobi.” Ben calls softly, making the boys head jerk up. “There is no easy path to Knighthood, no guarantee of success, and I will be honest and inform you that I will likely fail to be what you would wish for in a Master, in a Jedi, and in a man. But I can swear to teach you the lessons that you will _need_ for what is to come – if you listen, and if you can bear them.”

The boy’s mouth has dropped open and snapped shut, and Ben has his full attention.

“Initiate Kenobi, would you assent to accept my teachings, and become my Padawan Learner?”

Everyone else at the table is dead quiet, and Obi-Wan’s nose flares as he sucks in a deep breath and lets it out in a rush that slumps his shoulders.

“I would honored, Master Naasade.” Obi-Wan says gratefully, standing up so he can bow.


	7. Chapter 7

“Master Naasade.” Mace Windu clips out, waiting outside the Council chamber. “Would you care to explain?”

Ben smirks, and he can help the perverse pleasure he still derives from driving this man up the wall. “I’ve taken Obi-Wan Kenobi as my Padawan Learner.”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi.” Mace says flatly. “You – what kind of self-serving machinations do you have-“

“Not self-serving.” Ben cuts him off, tilting a sharp hand as he would in any briefing with Cody, cutting silence into the room. “I will ask of him more than any other Master would dare, and demand more than he’ll believe he can give, but he will become who he needs to be, hopefully with a few less tragedies.”

Mace points a finger in his face. “Training yourself – that’s _cheating_! On so many levels.”

“Dark days lie ahead, Master Windu.” Ben shrugs. “We must take what we can.”

~*~

Obi-Wan, in a span of hours, had shed his doubt like so much dust, and now shone like a beacon while he laughs, splashing with Anakin in one of the shallowest pools while Shmi walked in wonder among the nearest gardens, one eye always on her son.

Ben himself settled on the edge of a larger pool, listening to the water lap quietly behind him, and to the echoes of Anakin’s bright laughter bouncing off the walls, and to the quiet hum of _life-growing-life_ that was all the growing things in the gardens.

Senator Sheev Palpatine is already the elected representative of Naboo, is already amassing power in the Galactic Senate, and has a reputation for his generosity and his determination. He’s right there, just within reach, and Ben can’t touch him.

For two reasons:

The first, Ben is not strong enough to defeat Darth Sideous even now. He knows this in his bones, in the cold whispers the Force curls into his ears. Not yet. Not alone.

The second, Ben does not know exactly when Darth Sideous slew his predecessor, and became the Sith Master. Sideous, at least, is known to him. Ben does not dare challenge whomever _his_ Master had been.

He does not know yet when he can act, but he has an idea of how to figure it out. If he can track down Maul, he can observe his progress. But that means going to Dathomir, and that has its own perils. The Nightsister’s are not to be trifled with, and there is much more he can get from them than the path of his old adversary. In time.

Particularly given that Ben has just put himself on a very precarious path, and he is not on it alone.

Ben settles his twisting thoughts into true meditation as he feels Shmi join him. His muscles gently relax, and his senses expand. Her presence is more mirage than real, but like heat on the sands, Ben can still feel it, gently skimming just along the edges of his own. Ben lets his sense of self sink into the gardens, into the _thirst-light-bloom_ of the nearest tree, into the warm soil and cool water and the peace that suffuses this part of the temple most strongly. Together, they curl around Obi-Wan and Anakin’s brilliant lights in the Force, touching their joy and the ease of childhood, expanding into the Temple itself, into the echoes of memory upon memory of Force-Sensitives imprinted on the very walls. They let themselves drift, the tight hold of quiet and shadow that Shmi has wrapped around herself loosening its hold, letting out glimpses of her shining presence, like a spring bursting from the sands.

There is a spike of worry from Obi-Wan that draws Ben back into himself, gently encouraging Shmi to continue to rest in her senses, to let herself drift in the Force and _feel_. When Ben finally recognizes his own heartbeat well enough to open his eyes, he finds that he and Shmi have been joined by Master’s Yoda, Plo Koon, and Shaak Ti.

Plo Koon has released his senses, and is meditating peacefully, but Yoda’s mind is on the here and now and he is watching Ben. Shaak Ti’s eyes are closed, but there is an open curiosity about her, as she carefully reaches out to meet Shmi in the Force. The young woman startles, and the shadows pull in, muffling her presence once more. Shaak Ti withdraws in the Force, radiating quiet apology, but when her eyes open, there is something deeply contemplative in their silver depths. She closes them again after a moment, and sinks into true meditation.

Ben lifts a brow at Master Yoda.

“Serene, you two were. Feel it, half the Temple can. Loud, you are.” He glances at Obi-Wan, who is trying valiantly to demonstrate to a three-year old the concept of paddling. “Loud, you always have been.”

Most of his life, Ben had been told to tighten his shields because he was one of the loudest broadcasters in the Order, even over Anakin. The ability to mentally deafen anyone not suitably buffered had not endeared him to any potential Master’s either. Force knows Qui-Gon had closed their connection whenever he projected too much.

With a proper bond, he and Obi-Wan would probably be able to hear each other from opposite sides of a planet, which was a boon he had not previously considered.

“Is there something I can do for you, Master Yoda?” Ben inquires politely.

“If a Master, you have chosen to be, duties, you must attend to. Much demand, there is, for talents such as yours. A new Padawan, you have. Convenient, this is, hm?” Yoda says, pinning Ben with his thousand-parsec-stare. “A new lightsaber, your Padawan needs. A new lightsaber, _you_ should aquire. Go to Ilum, Squall Clan must. Need a chaperone, they do.”

“You’re assigning me to a training mission?” Ben asks incredulously. “To Ilum? What about-“ He glances over at Shmi, who is once more immersed in the Force.

“Look after the Skywalkers, we shall. Well, they will be. Learn without you, they will, and good, that is. Grow, they can, if let them, you do.” Yoda says, not unkindly, for all that it chafes.

Yoda and Ben still stare each other down for a minute more, before the time-displaced Master accedes to the request, though he does shoot a wondering glance at Plo Koon and Shaak Ti, wondering what their purpose here was.

“Offered to accompany you, Master Ti has. A Padawan, she feels she must find.” Yoda explains, though Ben frowns lightly. In so far as he recalls, Shaak Ti claimed her next Padawan while Ben was on his year-long mission to protect the Duchess of Mandalore, three years ahead. By the time of the Clone Wars, Master Ti was considered one of the greatest training Master’s the Order had ever seen. It was why they chose her to oversee the training of the Clones on Kamino. “And curious, Master Plo was. Good, meditation is, and welcome, he was.”

Ben nods his assent, and Yoda closes his eyes, slipping into meditation. Ben follows.

~*~

Squall Clan is fourteen members strong, most of them aquatic, semi-aquatic, or amphibious species, ranging from the youngest at eight-standard to the oldest at twelve-standard, or their species equivalent. They are, to a number, eager to crowd and question Ben and Shaak Ti, excitable in the presence of Jedi who are not their Crechemaster. To a number, they also move around Obi-Wan as if there is a barrier that separates them, and the boy seems uncomfortable in their presence, and by their probing stares and even more probing questions, chief among them being: “I thought you were being sent away. Why did Master Naasade choose _you_ to be his Padawan?”

Given that Squall Clan knows that their every present member will be a Padawan or a Healer, even if formal training has not yet begun, his last minute redirection is out of the ordinary.

“Younglings.” Ben calls for their attention, again.

“Initiates.” An amused Shaak Ti corrects, clapping her hands together once, and successfully gaining their attention. “We would like for all of you to select your bunks, please, and then proceed to the comm station. While we’re in hyperspace, you may make study of the passing star systems. Find something interesting to share with us all after dinner.”

“Yes, Master Ti!” They chorused back, and Obi-Wan hovered under Ben’s elbow, looking up at his master with wide eyes. “Me too?” He asks quietly.

“Are you an initiate?” Ben asks.

“Is that a trick question?” Obi-Wan retorts quickly, and Ben snorts, reaching out to tug the small braid behind the boy’s ear.

“No, Padawan mine, it wasn’t.” He glances at the bustling, busy Squall clan, and lowers his voice, opening his shields and prodding at the faint, fledgling bond between them. He thought it would be…easier, or stronger, given that he and Obi-Wan were…well, were. But it was proving just as tenuous to connect with him as it had been with Anakin. “It’s mostly a distraction to keep them occupied.” He whispers. Obi-Wan quashes an inappropriate smile and nods.

“You and I are going to meditate, Padawan.” Ben says, well aware of the disappointment that declaration inspires. “And work on your mental shielding.”

“Am I too loud?” Obi-Wan asks uncertainly. “I know I project too much, everyone tells me-“

“It’s not that, Padawan. I’m less concerned with quieting your mind than I am with teaching you how to protect it.” Ben says, knowing he should use the boys name and struggling with the dissonance of doing so.

Obi-Wan blinks. “Protect it from what?”

“From _whom_ , Padawan.” Ben says, and explains no further.

~*~

“That was an intense first lesson for your student.” Shaak Ti speaks softly, as even whispers echo in the ice chambers. The Temple of Ilum is beautiful, but cold, even glittering with shining sunlight. Together, they watch the door slowly freeze, feeling the fifteen small, bright Force sensitives wander the catacombs beyond. “Most Master’s wait until familiarity has been established through lightsaber training and simple meditation before diving in to the deep end of the Force.” It is not quite a rebuke.

“I know.” Ben replies simply. Shaak Ti’s curious gaze holds against his face for a moment longer, and then she nods, just as simply.

“Master Yoda says you’re looking for a Padawan.” Ben says, minutes or hours later.

“There was one in the Creche whom I believed would be my future Padawan, though I could not claim him for another three years, but recently, something has changed.”

“In the boy?” Ben inquires, curious.

“In myself.” Shaak Ti replies. “I cannot see shatterpoints, as Master Windu does, but I have felt as if I face a great choice, as if I am just about to step forward where the path diverges, and yet I cannot see what those choices are.”

“Would you like my help?” Ben inquires. “I am not a renowned Seer, but I do have a talent for prescience that has become more pronounced of late.” He says, with an utterly straight face in spite of the irony.

Shaak Ti lifts a fine brow. “You want to meditate? Here? On _Ilum_?” It was not generally encouraged to throw oneself into the Force when on a planet rife with focusing crystals. You may not get yourself back.

“If you want clarity, then yes. Here, on Ilum.” Ben replies.

Shaak Ti is quiet for long minutes, and then nods. “Yes, alright.”

She was always brave.

Ben settles himself down, sweeping his robes, thankfully borrowed from the ship for the weather and therefor a neutral blue, underneath himself as Shaak Ti did the same. They face each other, knees only just far apart not to touch, and Ben studies her face as she sinks into meditation, focusing her thoughts on that precipice she senses looming. When she seems ready, Ben reaches forward and takes her hands in hers. She startles, a bright streak of alarm, and then settles, determined, as he lets himself fall away into the Force, concerned only with the point of connection between them.

It starts as vague, blurred flashes – storms of rain over a violent sea – a dark jungle knight, and Shaak Ti’s voice in the darkness “ _Be brave_.” - Sand, the hum of hundreds of lit sabers and the rattling roar of an ampitheater – a dozen upturned faces, reaching up towards a holoprojection -

It settles, like walking through a fog into clear day.

_\- A young man wearing no braid, twirling a green saber, pacing himself through a set of katas on the grassy ledge of a cliff, grinning as his Master walks up the hill to join him._

_“How is my sister Padawan, Master Ti?” He smiles, flush with an easy confidence, radiating strength and surety in the Force. There are pitted scars across one cheek, and over his hands, and the weight of experience crinkling the edges of his eyes, for all that he is still young. Birds swirl in the open air, gliding on the drafts the cliffside creates._

_“She is…contrary.” Shaak Ti replies, igniting her saber and posing to face him. They fall into an easy twirl of sabers, familiar, comforting, but harsh, quick and rigid in a way the Temple does not teach, but the battlefield does. “There is conflict in her that she does not understand.”_

_“Then she is lucky,” He replies softly. “for she has the greatest training Master in the Order to see her through it.”_

_Shaak Ti laughs, but her words are sad. “Even I am not infallible. None of us are, for all that we wish we could be.” She draws in a sharp breath, blocking a powerful strike before shunting it away. “But the first lesson remains-“ She recites, and he echoes her with a soft smile._

_“Trust in the Force.”_ –

The path shifts, another choice made, and –

_They are standing in dust, the taste of smoke in the air, and Shaak Ti is coming up behind a woman with brown hair styled in three braids, with twin saber-hilts at the low of her back, oddly notched and perfectly parallel. Her presence in the Force is quiet, but vast._

_“How does it feel?” Shaak Ti asks, coming to stand beside her._

_“To be a freed woman on a freed world?” The woman replies, and Shaak Ti does not recognize her then, but Ben does. Her face – her true face -  is titled towards the sky, tears running clear, but she wears a smile. “For the first time in my life, I believe I know peace.”_

_Shaak Ti reaches out, and takes the womans hand. “I am proud of you, Shmi.”_

_“Thank you, Master” Shmi says, the word packed with a history of meaning, “for being here-“_

_“Mom!” A young man calls, blonde hair flashing gold in the sunlight as he dashes forward and swoops the Shmi up, spinning her around. “We did it, Mom, we did it!” He grins, soot-streaked and dusty and grinning from ear to ear._

_“Padawan Skywalker.” Shaak Ti says dryly, standing just out of range of being hugged. Anakin lowers his mother back to her own feet and looks only a little abashed. “Grandmaster Ti!” He greets, and then his gaze drops deliberately to both her elbows. “Your Padawans are missing!” He exclaims, with dramatic exaggeration._

_“I’m sure they aren’t.” Shaak Ti says, looking quietly amused._

_“I’ll go make sure they’re not in trouble. It’s still of a bit of a riot out here.” He flashes a cheeky grin, kisses his mothers cheek, and dashes off._

_“They are less trouble together than you are alone, Anakin Skywalker!” His mother calls after him, and he laughs-_

They are abruptly back on Ilum, where it is, in stark contrast to the place of their vision, unmitigateably cold, the Force is ringing in their ears, and there are three self-satisfied Initiates hovering around them with curious gazes. Ben rises, helping Shaak Ti to her feet. She meets his gaze when they are both standing, and there is a depth of wonder there.

“ _Padawans_.” She repeats the plural, intrigued and unsettled.

“I think claiming Anakin as your Grandpadawan because his mother was your Padawan is cheating. That boy is not of your lineage.” Ben grumbles, a sly smile curled at the edge of his mouth. She shoots him a short look.

“Is that so?” She inquires highly, amused, and then again, still shocked. “ _Padawans_.”

“Masters?” A little nautolaun boy inquires, breaking up their reverie and calling their attention back to their duties, as the initiates exclaim over their journey in the caves and they wait for the others to arrive.

“Shmi Skywalker is already an adult herself, and a mother.” Shaak Ti says later, quietly, as they wait for the last few to return. Obi-Wan has still not found his crystal, and Ben, who finds a wall of ice to be no challenge, will enter once all the younglings have succeeded.

Ben says nothing in response. Shaak Ti must decide this for herself.

Obi-Wan comes out last, carrying the youngest member of Squall Clan on his back, the girl clutching her crystal victoriously but also sporting a very swollen sprained ankle. Shaak Ti immediately sweeps the girl up, directing Squall Clan to fall in line and follow her back to the ship. Ben hangs back with his Padawan.

“Did you find what you needed?” Ben inquires. Obi-Wan looks up uncertainly, and lifts his palm, slowly uncurling his fingers.

“I found it, but it…it split in two.” He says, revealing the two cleaved halves of crystal. Ben lifts a brow and carefully picks up the pieces, holding them up to what remains of the light. One refracts a bright ice-blue sheen which is familiar to him, but the other half is shaded slightly green. He’s curious to see what color it will bring out in the blade.

“Multi-crystal blades are not generally built until knighthood.” Ben comments. “But with the proper regulators, I see no harm in building one now, so long as you are responsible. We’ll merely have to work harder on your connection with the Force. You’ll need to advance quickly.”

Obi-Wan is wide eyed by the time he’s finished speaking, but he nods and retakes the crystals, looking fiercely determined. The naivety of it almost hurts to look at, and so Ben clasps his Padawan on the shoulder and then moves beyond him to enter the cave.

~*~

The lake. The karking damn lake of fucking course.

Ben had been walking along the dark corridors, listening to the ice shift, when suddenly it gave way beneath him, shooting him down a dark slough and right into icy water, and there, below him, shining like a gem, was his crystal. At the bottom. _Kriff_ it.

Ben forced his shocked, numb limbs to move and swam, chest burning because he hadn’t had time to pull in a breath to hold before his unceremonious dunking.

It reminded him too much of Utapau, of the sudden plunge, and the _dying-death-dead_ that screamed in the Force and never stopped, that hurt and devastated and had him wondering if it wouldn’t be better to join them, all those lights going out, to just open his lungs and drown –

He didn’t do it then. He won’t give up and do it now.

His fingers close around the crystal and his boots sink into the sandy bottom as he pushes off, kicking up into pure blackness until something finally slammed down on his head. Water flooded his mouth and nose and he panicked before he reined it in and pressed him free hand to the ice above him.

Only it wasn’t ice. It was stone, and it bit back at his fingers and refused to budge. Ben pushes his senses, as best he could given the white noise slowly consuming all rational thought, at the burning pressure in his jerking lungs, demanding he open his mouth and breath except there was only water.

There is no ice, easily breakable. Above him, stone stretches in all directions, unyielding, and Ben slams his first against it, once, twice.

There is no way out.

Ben feels fury rise up, despair, hate, all the black and vile things that haunted him since Mustafar, and if he was honest, long before that, all the things that crowded his every defeat, that mocked his every failure, that crooned so sweetly _give up, give in to me, I’ll ease your pain, I’ll crush your enemies, use me_ -

Except Anakin had done that, and destroyed everything he’d ever loved.

 _I’ll find a way._ Ben swore. He had been given a chance. It had not promised to be easy, or straightforward, but it was a chance.

Ben pushed into the stone, and kept pushing, not with his hand, but with everything that he was, all his hopes and nightmares and everything he had and everything he has sacrificed, and what was mere stone, compared to that?

The world rumbled and great chunks fell from above him, occasionally catching his shoulder or side as he propelled himself up and up and finally broke surface, gasping and scrabbling with his fingernails for a solid edge to hold on to.

Ben laughed, when he had air in his lungs, relieved and drained, and kicked at the water until he could heave himself up onto the shelf, and drag himself back out of the catacombs.

Shaak Ti’s expression when he arrived half frozen – quite literally – and supported by his padawan was to be cherished, and Ben didn’t realize until she pried it out of his palm that he’d picked up a second crystal of his own when he’d decided to punch the stone ceiling.


	8. Chapter 8

The rest of their journey is luckily without any major revelation or accident, and Shaak Ti and Professor Wu do a marvelous job of corralling the Initiates well enough that Ben can focus on assisting Obi-Wan as he built a multi-crystal blade. The hilt will be longer than the boy is used to, but he’ll grow into it with time, the casing will no doubt need to be resized twice before he’s fully grown. His components are not what they would have been in another life – less silver piping and more black beskar, which is a choice he can’t yet know the meaning of. Ben’s own hilt comes together as an asymmetric ivory and gold affair, more organic in shape than industrial, and whose appearance he finds puzzling, for all it fits in his hand as naturally as the staff he used to walk the deserts.

Obi-Wan’s hilt is a stark black-and-white, which the boy frowns at the entire time Ben is working on his own saber, waiting so that they can light them together.

“Are you ready?” Ben inquires.

“It’s not…what I thought.” Obi-Wan mutters, shoulders hunched.

“Does it feel right?” Ben asks thoughfully. Obi-Wan twists his lip, but nods.

“Yes, but it isn’t – it doesn’t look like….doesn’t it look too…” Obi-Wan sighs, frustrated.

“It is a reminder.” Ben says. “That there is balance in all things, Obi-Wan. Both light and dark, and neither can exist without the other.”

“But isn’t that wrong?” Obi-Wan questions. “We’re taught that darkness needs to be eradicated and that’s it evil and we-“

“Where is the balance in that, Obi-Wan? Darkness is half of life, as sadness is half of joy.” Ben says gently. “To deny it is ignorance, not wisdom. Our duty is not to eradicate darkness, Padawan, but to fight true evil, to push back against cruelty and violence and injustice.”

Obi-Wan finally quiets, thinking for a long moment, and then carefully picks up is saber, eyeing it curiously, the lesson still turning over in his mind.

They ignite their blades with a twin snap-hiss, and both are equally surprised at the results.

Obi-Wan’s split crystal has produced a rich cyan blade, the line clean and pure between green and blue as he moves through a basic kata.

Ben’s blade has appeared as a shimmering and brilliant copper, which quickly caught the attention of the Initiates as they oohed and awed.

“I’ve never seen a lightsaber that color!” Several of them murmured, awed.

Most Jedi, it was true, had either a blue or green blade. But what was also true was that most Jedi never moved beyond their first crystal, even when they added a second or third later in life. That first crystal, however, was attuned to the Force of the child in question, and children, particularly those of the Jedi Temple, were uncomplicated souls. They had no great experience yet to shape them, to change their connection with the Force from its original state. Even most Knight would not find that color to be different, but if they tried again after Mastery, Ben thinks the results would be very changed.

Mace Windu’s first saber had been green, and his second blue. It was the addition of a second stone to that saber which had shifted pale blue to shining purple. Ahsoka Tano’s second blade had been a summer yellow to match the verdant green of her first, and to temper it. She’d been a senior Padawan then, and faced more trials in two years of war than most Jedi faced in a lifetime. Her loss still eats at him, because he knew she would have been one of the greatest Knights the Order had ever seen. There had been a strength and certainty to her that never wavered, and as much as she had been a warrior, she had also been so very kind, so very light in spirit.

Ben lets them gawk for another minute and then shoos them back to Shaak Ti, before gathering his Padawans attention.

“Now then, Obi-Wan. This is a perfect time to work on your lightsaber training.”

The boy grinned in delight. “Yes, Master.”

~*~

As Shaak Ti had taken on much of the minding duties for Squall Clan on the outbound journey, Ben shouldered much of their attention on the return, walking them through Shii-Cho exercises and helping them attune themselves to their new lightsabers, practicing different grips and stances to help them find which was most comfortable, and offering suggestions as to what style may suit them in the future.

By the end of their five-day hyperspace journey, they were exhausted and cranky and each had perfected a scowl reserved especially for Ben’s reiterations of “Let’s do that again, shall we?”

Often, they would end up shuffling on wobbly legs with dead-weight arms to dinner, and when released would collapse gratefully into bed. Obi-Wan, who was not only put through the paces with them, but was also responsible for ‘assisting’ Ben by demonstrating, _repeatedly_ , often never made it that far. More than once Ben carried the exhausted tweenling from the dinner table, where he had fallen asleep next to his half-finished plate, and eased him into his berth.

The only reason Shaak Ti didn’t step in and rescue the boy was that he was not unrewarded for his efforts, in spite of her concern over how hard he was being pushed. Ben allowed Obi-Wan to sleep through breakfast with Squall Clan, saving him a hot serving, and gave Obi-Wan the first and longest shower allotment.

When they finally arrived at the Temple, the entirely of Squall clan ran gratefully to their crechemaster, whom a ten-day ago they couldn’t wait to escape from, and Ben smirked at the baffled look on the trandoshan Crechemaster’s face as she welcomed back her brood.

“You’re a surprisingly gifted instructor, Master Naasade.” Shaak Ti muses, coming to stand beside him.

“I think they’d disagree.” Ben points out.

“Hmm, perhaps.” She says. “You did ask much of them.” She catches his eye with a knowing gleam in her own. “But never more than they could give. Though your poor Padawan…” She muses, and Ben chuffs half a laugh, as Obi-Wan ambles slowly down the ramp behind them, muscles still trembling from fatigue.

“Have you thought more on _your_ future Padawan?” Ben inquires, ruffling Obi-Wan’s hair when the boy pauses under his elbow, and earning a resigned sigh for it.

Shaak Ti tilts her head a little, her proud face troubled. “Shmi Skywalker…the Jedi Code is clear on the matter.”

“But is it right?” Ben questions. “Sometimes you must forget what you _know_ , and rely on what you _feel_.”

“That is anathema to the Jedi.” Shaak Ti replies, though her voice lacks conviction.

“That is the Force.” Ben retorts.

Shaak Ti sighs, and her frustration buzzes in the air. She does not release it in the moment, and so Ben lets her be. “Perhaps.” She concedes quietly, bowing her own departure.

“Master, am I supposed to move into your quarters or go to the Padawan Dorms?” Obi-Wan inquires, having mustered up some energy. “I don’t want to displace the Skywalkers…”

“You’re a little young for the Padawan Dorms, Obi-Wan.” Ben replies, stroking his beard as he puzzles the matter. He hadn’t really thought about it, but Obi-Wan was right. So was Ben – the Padawan Dorms were typically for Senior Padawans preparing for their finals exams and/ or their impending Trials. Often this would be the stage where they began running solo missions apart from their Master, and practiced independence in preparation for Knighthood. In these particular circumstances, they might allow Obi-Wan a dorm temporarily, but Ben didn’t want to isolate the boy and risk their fledgling bond. “We may have to simply squeeze in and suffer through until the Skywalkers have decided where to go from here. Luckily, our quarters were designed for species a bit bigger than ours, so there is some wiggle room.”

“If you say so, Master.” Obi-Wan replies, looking untroubled by the prospect. Then again, Initiates are used to sharing a small dorm with five to seven others – a set of Master and Padawan quarters split four ways was an improvement.

The Skywalkers are out of residence when Ben and Obi-Wan arrive at their quarters, and so Ben instructs Obi-Wan to go ahead and retrieve his possessions from the Initiates dorm and place them in Ben’s room. While he’s doing so, Ben compiles a written report on their mission and comm’s Shaak Ti, inquiring if they’ve already been given a time to report to the Initiates Council.

Obi-Wan returns shortly with a small pack of his meager possessions, mostly clothes, and Ben offers him half the closet, which is far too much space, but the boy shrugs and complies, folding his clothes away in the cubby’s and stacking the datapads for his classwork on the shelf.

“I’ve requested another bed from the quartermaster, and we’ll have to rearrange things a bit, but we should fit well enough.” Ben says, re-reading his assessment of the two Mon Calamari initiates and hoping he hasn’t mixed them up. They were cousins, and had a similar appearance and similar names, but wildly different characteristics. “Unless you’d prefer a hammock?” Ben adds.

“No, Master Naasade.” Obi-Wan replies, distracted by the plants in the living area, tracing some of the vines with a look of delight on his face that makes Ben pause and want to groan, because of course this Obi-Wan thinks the plants are wonderful. This Obi-Wan hasn’t been poisoned, suffered several allergic reactions, and on one occasion been stung by the various flora adopted by Qui-Gon Jinn. Ben is fond of plants, he is. He even has favorites, such as the flowering bushes of Alderaan Bail Organa kept in his every residence, or the lilies of Mandalore that Satine wore in her hair, but Ben is fond of plants only so long as they do not encroach upon the place where he sleeps and the place where he eats.

Shaak Ti replies to his inquiry that they had a time allotted to report to the Initiates Council at 1900 hours, which gives Ben plenty of time to finish his report _and_ meditate with his Padawan.

Obi-Wan is less enthused about the simple meditation, but all tweenlings tended to be that way, and Ben is patient when the boy struggles to reach that point of release in the Force, where his mind slows down and his senses open up, fidgeting and scratching and generally thinking too hard about it.

In the end, Obi-Wan reaches a light trance before Ben has to leave, so he calls it acceptable for the day and sends his Padawan off to dinner, which feels more like lunch given the mismatched time-table between Ilum and Coruscant.

The Initiates Council is formed of six seats, two permanent and four rotating, and comprised entirely from Crechemasters. One permanent seat belongs to the Master of the Creche, who is responsible for the overall welfare of the younglings, and the other to the Master of Initiates, who is responsible for the training, education, and placement of the younglings. The remaining four seats are rotated among Crechemasters in charge of various age groups. For simple matters such as reporting in from a training mission, only the two permanent seats and the Crechemaster or masters of the younglings involved need be present, unless something had gone drastically wrong.

Their report was a straightforward affair, and Ben and Shaak Ti took turns answering respective questions, both offering their personal evaluations of each initiate, and Ben realizes that he has mixed up the two Mon Calamari when he and Shaak Ti confer on the pair, which is a fumble that seems to amuse the Initiates Council more than anything.

When they leave, Shaak Ti surprises him by laying a hand on his arm, and gesturing for him to follow her. Intrigued, he does, as she leads him through the winding Creche Tower and stops, hovering, outside one of the open reading rooms. Two dozen younglings from various clans are piled onto cushions, some as young as Anakin and others old enough to be chosen as Padawans, each and every one paying rapt attention to the woman in the center.

Ben recognized Anakin on her lap before he recognized Shmi, as her face was her own, unhidden in front of the younglings, and her voice lifted in a story-tellers lilt, instead of the hushed tones he was used to. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, even then, with blurry scars and a thin slash of a mouth, but she had those deep, watching eyes and a gentle face. Her hair was pulled back in a long braid, and her hands moved in familiar patterns as she spoke, lending exaggeration and motion to her words as she tells them the stories all slaves tell their children.

Ben and Shaak Ti watch from the shadow of the corridor.

“If Ar-Amu is everyones mother, then does that mean the depur are her children too? That she watches over them, even if they’re evil?” A young tholotian boy asks, once Shmi has finished her story, clutching a cushion to his chest, voice half-muffled by it.

“No one is born evil.” Shmi tells them softly. “Not even the depur, so yes, Ar-Amu watches over them, and she grieves for them, for they have blinded themselves to her light, and forsaken the gifts she gave them. She does not turn away. Ar-Amu is all mother, and all mothers know that not all of their children can be saved. That does not mean she stops trying to save them, to teach them to be better than who they have become.”

“But she doesn’t protect them from Lukka.” A biff child points out. “Ekkreth tricked them into the deep desert, and Ar-Amu didn’t guide them to shelter. She let them wander into the storm.”

“Lukka is justice, little one.” Shmi replies. “It is a mothers place to protect her children, but you cannot protect them from themselves, or from the things they have done. Lukka is merciless, but fair. Even if he judges you harshly, he scours you clean. He remakes you, so that you may try again, in this life, or in another.”

“Even the depur?”

“Even the depur.” Shmi replies. Slave-stories are not kind, Ben knows, but the lessons they taught were real.

Shaak Ti touches his arm again, and the two masters slip away.

“I went to see her this afternoon and found her with the clans in the gardens. She has apparently been spending most of her time between the Creche and the Mechanics for the past ten-day, and she is well liked among both.” Shaak Ti informs him, leading him through one of the art rooms and managing to short cut straight into the gardens. “They were paying a game, and I found her teaching the younger Hawkbat Clan how to hide from the older Thranta Clan, not among the trees, but within themselves. She doesn’t even truly understand what the Force is, Master Naasade, and she taught _six year olds_ a lesson that full-fledged Knights training to become Shadows struggle to comprehend.”

Ben thought, perhaps, that Shaak Ti did not intend to reveal that she knew what comprised a Shadow-Learner’s training, but chooses not to prod her on that particular slip at the moment. The lights in the gardens are dimmed for evening, and the soothing burble of falling water pervades the halls.

“We teach lessons from poetry written about the experiences she has lived through, Master Ti. Not all wisdom can be taught second-hand.” Ben says.

“If I wanted riddles, I would have gone to Master Yoda.” Shaak mutters.

“If you want answers, you should start asking questions.” Ben retorts, amused and completely sincere.

She wrings her hands in frustration before releasing it into the Force. “I don’t know what to ask.”

“Yes you do.” Ben sighs. “But the questions you have aren’t for me, and no one but you holds the answers.”

“Damn.” Shaak Ti sighs, catching his gaze. They share a look, and then both of them find laughter at the irony of her predicament.

“You might be considering doing something that no one else has done, Master Ti, but that doesn’t mean you are doing them alone.” Ben offers, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm, to connect, when the Jedi were so often afraid to. She hesitates, before placing her hand over his.

“May the Force be with me.” She mutters, and then shoots him a narrow look. “Don’t expect me to be as dramatic as you are, Master Naasade. I’ll take the courtesy of actually discussing this with my prospective Padawan before dropping it on her head.”

“I had a very narrow window – I didn’t intend to just drop it on Obi-Wan’s head.” Ben defends.

“The boy didn’t even know your first name.” Shaak Ti snorts. “You could at least have offered a proper introduction first.”

“I…will concede to that point.” Ben bows to her argument. She glances aside, which is the most subtle way the elegant woman had to roll her eyes at him.


	9. Chapter 9

The addition of Obi-Wan to the household required more shuffling from Ben than from anyone, and Anakin seemed more enthused than anything else, at having a new family member to climb upon. Shmi seemed more relaxed as well, having settled more in his absence than in his presence, as Yoda had predicted.

They settled into a routine over the next few days, with a few kicks and starts. Shmi was usually the first up, well before sunrise, out of lifelong habit, though Ben rose shortly after, if he had managed sleep in the first place. In the quiet of the morning the two of them would share a cup of tea in easy silence, and settle down to meditate as they had on the _Red Kettle_ until the boys woke up.

The four of them would eat breakfast together and then head their separate ways – Shmi and Anakin to the Creche or Mechanics or to whichever destination had been suggested to them, Obi-Wan to classes, and Ben either ended up teaching a saber class or down in the Archives, slipping past Madame Nu and diving into the holonet records, tracking Palpatine’s actions in the Senate and trying to dig up information on other parties of interest – The Trade Federation, Jango Fett, Count Dooku, and even into the dealings of the Jedi Order.

Count Dooku, he learns, had recently suffered the repudiation and exile of his second Padawan, Komari Vosa, less than a year after the disaster that was Galidraan. Jango Fett, on the other hand, seems to have disappeared completely following the slaughter of the True Mandalorians.

By noon he would have to go collect his Padawan, and by dinner his Padawan was either bruised and wobbling on his feet or mentally exhausted and nursing a headache. By the end of the next ten-day, Ben was receiving admonishing looks from Masters, Knights, and Padawans alike for the fact that Obi-Wan clearly struggled to drag himself to dinner and back to their rooms in the evening. To be honest, they had nothing on the dirty looks Ben was getting from Obi-Wan’s friends.

“Are we starting with Soresu today, Master?” Obi-Wan asks as he trails behind Ben, already drooping even though they haven’t even started. He hasn’t complained, not yet, but he often glared murder at his Master when he thought Ben wasn’t looking, and half the time the entire training salle could feel the spite rolling off the boy who just ground his teeth and picked himself back up.

“No.” Ben replies, guiding him along and ignoring the pitying glance a pair of Padawans offer Obi-Wan.

“Oh….are we working on my shields?” Obi-Wan sounded surprised, as they had a routine of alternating his physical and mental activities.

“No, though I do commend you for the progress you made yesterday.” Ben says, pleased at the spike of happiness this produces, though it’s tinged heavily with relief. “You are doing well on both fronts, Obi-Wan, in spite of the difficult regimen I’ve set.” Ben adds after a moment, and the relief is replaced by surprise, and more genuine pride in his own accomplishments. Better.

“So what are we doing today, Master?” Obi-Wan inquires, skipping a step faster to catch up. His question is then followed by a flash of trepidation as he considers that his life might in fact be about to get _more_ difficult.

“Today, we are going to find your favorite garden, and I’m going to teach you how to play sabacc.”

Obi-Wan trips. Ben stops, turning and helping the boy back up, even as Obi-Wan scrambles to regain his equilibrium, face flushed red with embarrassment. “W-we’re playing cards? And…and that’s it?”

“I’m not trying to _kill you_ , Obi-Wan. You’re exhausted,” Ben chides dryly. “and sabacc is a useful skill. So yes, we are going to wander the gardens, and play cards, and that is it.”

“Oh.” Obi-Wan says simply, and then offers a shy smile. “Okay. Thank you, Master Naasade.”

Ben rolls his eyes, and they turn off into the Dining Hall, where they stock up on sandwiches, fruits, cheese, and two heated canisters of tea, a white oolong for Obi-Wan, and a sharp green for Ben.

“So what is your favorite garden, Master?” Obi-Wan inquires, as they take their haul and leave, Ben on the receiving end of many a pointed stare.

“To be honest, I’ve been away so long I’m not sure I have one anymore.” Ben replies.

“Oh. I don’t know what mine is either. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen all the gardens.” Obi-Wan offers.

“Well then, I’ve elected the perfect activity for us today, haven’t –“

“Master Naasade.” Ben had been distracted, and the sudden cutting call to attention had him shoving Obi-Wan back and saber in hand before he registered that he was not on the battlefield, that this was no distant planet where every turn was a trap waiting to spring, that there was no war here which he would never be free of.

Obi-Wan had gasped, and the other Master looked alarmed, one arm half raised in self-defense. Ben’s mouth feels dry, realizing that had he managed to ignite his blade, he’d have cut her down without even having seen her face, his nerves still singing with tension, and the desperate command of _protect- ambush -I won’t lose another one!_

Ben pulls himself in from his aggressive Djem-So guard stance and stares at the floor, trying to calm his breathing while he re-clipped his lightsaber to his belt. His hands were shaking.

“Master Tahl.” Ben manages to greet her, after clearing his throat twice. He glances behind him to see Obi-Wan, uncertain and clutching their picnic pack.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” Tahl replies, sounding just as unsettled as he is, and his chest aches, a hard pit forming behind his ribcage, because in another life he loved this woman, in another life, she was the closest thing he’d ever known to a mother, and she’d _died_ , and here – here, she didn’t even know him. Here, that relationship never existed, and, as Obi-Wan was not Qui-Gon’s Padawan, never might.

“Our Padawans are friends.” Ben supplies vaguely to excuse his recognition of her.

“They are.” Tahl nods, green-and-gold striped eyes narrowing. “And my padawan is very concerned about your padawan.” She crosses her arms, honey-gold skin contrasted richly by her pale clothes.

Well, Ben couldn’t say he hadn’t expected this. He’d just…hadn’t expected _her_. He’d been avoiding familiar faces with great skill. “I’m aware.” Ben replies, which earns him an even darker glare.

“You’re aware.” Tahl repeats, and Obi-Wan has shuffled, cringing, up to Ben’s elbow now. “Master Tahl, it’s not-“

She shushes him with a raised hand, gaze still pinned on Ben. “You push your padawan so brutally he can barely walk in the evenings, and all you have to say about your maltreatment is that ‘you’re aware’. Master Naasade-“

Obi-Wan tries to speak up again, sounding mortified. “Master Tahl-“

“ – while the training of ones Padawan is to be guided by their Master-“

“Oh really.” Ben says dryly.

“- you are pushing the boy too far. You are just as responsible for his health and happiness as you are for is training, and wearing him to the bone is detrimental to both. I understand that you may think that because Obi-Wan started late that you can somehow ‘correct’ this by accelerating his training, but he cannot truly progress unless you give him time to absorb his lessons. Something I don’t believe he’s even capable of considering he’s so exhausted he can barely string a thought together. His classes are suffering, as are his relationships with his friends-“

“Master Tahl, am I allowed to speak?” Ben finally asks, calmly and firmly.

Her mouth snaps shut, jaw grinding as she nods shortly, brown curls bobbing.

“My padawan and I are on our way to the gardens to play sabacc. Would you care to join us?” He offers, and watches her blink, jaw loosening. Then she flushes, takes in a short, calming breath, the color leaving some, and nods. “I would, yes, Master Naasade.” She replies. “Is this his reprieve for the afternoon?” She inquires, derailed but still on the offensive.

“This is his reprieve for the entire day.” Ben replies. “And tomorrow is his to do with as he pleases, though I wasn’t going to tell him that.” Ben remarks pointedly. “As I said, I am aware of exactly how hard I’m pushing my Padawan, and it is not so he can ‘catch up’ as you put it, nor is it meant to be punitive in nature.”

“As you will.” Tahl concedes, slightly. “But I fail to see what purpose is served by forcing such an aggressive advance.”

“And is my purpose to be judged solely by what you can see, Master Tahl?” Ben turns into the gardens, guiding Obi-Wan with one hand when the boy stumbles a little trying not to knock into him.

A muscle ticks in her jaw, and she does not reply to that one.

“Where is your padawan today, Master Tahl?” Ben inquires, pausing at a crossway in the gardens.

“Spending her afternoon studying for her Elementary Principles of Sentient Psychology exam.” Tahl replies, and Obi-Wan blanches. Ben offers him a glance and tugs on his Padawan braid.

“You can work on it tomorrow.” Ben says. “Which direction shall we go, Padawan?”

Obi-Wan nods in relief and looks around, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth. “Up.” He finally decides, and Ben gestures for him to lead the way. Tahl follows curiously, and manages to hold off questioning him for an entire five minutes.

“What is this exercise?” She inquires.

“We’ve never explored all the gardens in the Room of a Thousand Fountains.” Ben explains. “So that’s what we’re doing, so we can decide which is our favorite.”

“I thought you were playing sabacc.”

“Ah, but we need a place to play, don’t we?” Ben muses, following Obi-Wan through a dathomirian arbor, mist swirling around his knees. It gives way to an Umbaran grotto, which Ben pushes through quickly and he and Obi-Wan decide without exploring to forgo the swamp gardens and proceed upwards once more.

The stone gardens are pretty, but not particularly comfortable for their rather squishy species, and so they pass through after admiring the salt-spring. Even Tahl balks at the heat in the desert gardens, though Ben finds it somewhat welcome, to his own irritation.

“Where’s this one from?” Obi-Wan asks, pausing in an alcove of rich red rock with a bed of dappled grey grass. Brittle black creepers cling to the stone, and bloom pale yellow bell flowers. The fountain is a stream cutting through the grass, turning into a fall for one of the gardens below, and the water is crystal clear despite the red stone.

“Stewjon.” Ben says, and Obi-Wan twitches.

“That’s where I’m from.” Obi-Wan says, and Ben doesn’t correct him.

“Do you want to stay here?” Ben inquires, hoping the answer is no. Obi-Wan blinks, and looks up at him, blue eyes slightly distant with the call of the Force.

“I think it’s a good thinking place.” Obi-Wan replies. “But not for playing cards.”

Ben nods, and they keep going.

The jungle gardens are thick, and the air smells richly of soil and greenery – or redery, as the case may be. Ben spies the red and purple ferns from their quarters in among the garden copy of Kashyyyk. They climb into more temperate gardens, and Ben hovers wistfully around the imitations of Alderaan and Naboo. He may have bad memories of Padme’s planet, but he could never deny that it was beautiful. Obi-Wan seems to hover as well, and Ben catches him eyeing the waterfall and before he can comment on it, his padawan is climbing the rock face.

“Um?” Tahl points one finger after him and Ben sighs. “Are you coming?” He inquires, and follows his padawan.

At the top of the fall is a bed of spongey moss, and a near perfect circle created by the braiding roots of an Alderaani song tree, with trailing branches perfumed with thousands of small pink-and-purple flowers among the delicate silver-green leaves. Obi-Wan has already picked a spot in the circle and nestled himself against a root, setting down the pack. He grins when Ben climbs over the edge, and then tilts his head back towards it.

Ben turns, and understands. The view from the top of the fall overlooks half of the great cavern of the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and it’s beautiful.

“Okay, yeah.” Tahl agrees, pulling herself up. “You definitely found the spot.”

The three of them enjoy it quietly for a few minutes, just looking down over the hundreds of gardens below.

“You know,” Tahl says. “Three people does not exactly a sabacc game make.”

“I only have two friends; Shmi dislikes it and Shaak Ti won’t stoop to it in public.” Ben replies, and then eyes his fellow Master. “If you invite someone, you can’t give them the coordinates. They have to find us with the Force.”

“Why?” Tahl questions. Ben gives her a sharp smile.

“Weeding out the weak.” He says wolfishly, and then moves to find a seat in the circle with his padawan, who snorts.

~*~

Ben isn’t sure if he’s more horrified when Qui-Gon arrives, though he expected it the moment Tahl asked, or when Healer Ni Hiella does.

“Why are you here?” Ben demands.

Ni Hiella raises a purple brow. “Because someone posted ‘Sabacc game in the gardens, if you can find it’ on the Temple Net. You’ve got at least a dozen Knights down there wandering around trying to find this place.”

“That is not what I meant!” Ben glares at Tahl, who shrugs.

“If you want to teach your padawan the fine art of Sabacc, you need to lure in some real competition.” Tahl says airily.

“Oh, are we teaching padawans?” Ni Hiella purrs. “Let me summon mine. Gambling is an amazing barter tool on the outer rim when you need some emergency supplies.”

“Please let that not be a euphemism.” Ben mutters.

“What?” Obi-Wan asks, and Tahl and Ni Hiella bust up laughing, while Qui-Gon relaxes a little. He’d been very uncomfortable to discover Obi-Wan’s presence, given their brief and bitter history.

“Hey is this the sabacc place?” Someone pipes up, dark head appearing over the lip of the cliff.

“Padawan _Vos_.” Master Tahl chides. “You do not get to play cards.”

“I’ll wear gloves.” The boy swears, eyes wide in an attempt to seem innocent. “Hey – Obi-Wan’s here! I can play! Obi-Wan!”

The red-headed Padawan looks incredibly dismayed as the older boy scrambled up and around the Masters and dropped down beside him, gangly with youth and grinning from ear to ear.

Ben pours himself a cup of tea from his heated canteen and sips at it in relief before pulling his deck from his pocket.

“Is that alcoholic?” Quinlan inquires, wiggling his fingers towards the canteen. Ben gives him a narrow eyed look.

“I’m here to teach my padawan.” Ben says. “It’s only tea.”

“Oh, it better be.” Ni Hiella warns. “Your liver is still in distress.”

“It is not in distress.” Ben snaps back defensively, shifting against the roots to get more comfortable, and finding a place to set his cup so he can teach Obi-Wan how to shuffle.

“The kriff it isn’t. Your entire body is in distress.” The Healer snipes.

“I’m fine.”

“Sock drawer in a trash compactor.” She repeats.

“Thank you.” Ben smiles pleasantly at her, and her eyes glitter dangerously.

“Master? Do I have to?” Padawan Chias calls up plaintively, from the bottom of the fall.

“Yes!” Ni Hiella calls back, and then glances around their circle. “My padawan is…less than fond of heights.”

“That’s unkind.” Tahl snickers.

“Under duress is the perfect time to learn.” Ben and Qui-Gon both utter. Ben clenches his jaw, and Qui-Gon studies his profile with a puzzled, surprised glance. Obi-Wan gulps. “Not for you. This time.” Ben assures him. He doesn’t look very reassured.

They listen to Padawan Chias get creatively more vindictive as he curses his way up the rock face, whining a little when he finally figures out that he’s not going to make it all the way up without assisting himself with the Force. The pantoran padawan finally heaves himself over the side and promptly chucks something at his Master. “As requested.” He bites out, chest heaving as he lets himself enjoy not being suspended from a thirty foot rock face by his fingertips and the Force.

“Now this,” Ni Hiella smiles. “Is alcoholic.”

“And you’re lecturing me?” Ben gripes.

“My liver is in perfect working order.” She parries, tossing her hair over her shoulder before retrieving the three dark bottles from the case and passing them to either side.

“So is mine.” Ben shuffles the cards again, while Obi-Wan and Quinlain watch intently, and then lets his padawan try.

“Your liver operates on an inexplicable miracle of modern medicine.” Ni Hiella tells him. “Now, we’ve got one bottle of Alderaani white for you soft touches, one bottle of Florrum green for those of you who don’t mind going blind, and one bottle of Correlian brandy just for me.”

“Lush.” Her padawan calls out, before deciding he will get up and come join the circle.

Ben, meanwhile, has tensed, eyes darting to the bottle. Ni Hiella’s lips quirk, spotting the gesture.

“Oh I’m sorry, did I just discover your vice?” She muses, and Obi-Wan flicks the cards wrong, scattering them like confetti.

“You’ve got stubby fingers, Obi-Wan!” Quinalin laughs.

“And you promised to be wearing gloves, Padawan Vos.” Ben remarks pointedly, helping Obi-Wan pick up the cards. Vos pout and pulls his gloves out of a pocket.

“Here, let me show him.” Tahl gestures, drawing the cards towards herself with the Force. “For pity’s sake.” Padawan Chias settles himself next to the noorian Knight, shooting his Master a glare for which she toasts him with her bottle. He jerks it out of her hand, takes a swig, and passes it back. He then cringes, but doesn’t choke.

Tahl shuffles twice, before putting the deck in Obi-Wan’s hands and then walking him through the pressure points, while Qui-Gon mockingly echoes her instructions just loud enough to hear. Ben tries not to twitch at his Master’s voice, not to flinch every time their gazes meet, but he isn’t as successful as he’d like to be. That wound never healed.

“You do realize cards is not a science, Tahl?” Qui-Gon teases. “It’s an art. He needs to feel for it.”

“By all means, Qui.” Tahl rasps sardonically, gesturing for him to make the attempt.

“Maybe someone else should try now?” Obi-Wan says plaintively, looking to both Quinlan and Essja.

“No no no, Padawan mine.” Ben says, leaning in. “You’re learning this, everyone else is just window dressing.”

“Flattering.” Ni Hiella drawls.

“Thank you.” Quinlan Vos purrs, far too salaciously for his age. Essja Chias groans, and Tahl rolls her eyes.

“Well, can I learn this part later?” Obi-Wan whines. “We haven’t even gotten to the actual game yet!”

“Point.” Tahl tips her head.

Ben concedes, and reshuffles the deck once it leaves Qui-Gon’s hands before dealing.

“To start with, Padawan mine, sabacc is generally played by parties of two to eight players. Two makes for a tediously long game, and more than eight is messy. Regardless of the number of players, we deal everyone two cards each.”

“Keep them face down until everyone has been dealt, and the remainder placed on the table.” Tahl says.

“Okay.” Obi-Wan nods, looking far more serious than was warranted.

“Once everyone has been dealt, we check our cards, and, starting from dealers left – which is me – call out your current total. Once everyone’s cards have been called, you can choose to draw a card from the deck, or stand and keep what you have.” Ben explains. “Again starting from dealers left.”

“Okay.” Obi-Wan nods again.

“Now, the goal is to get a perfect twenty-three, positive or negative. Exceed either of those, and you lose automatically. If no one has a perfect twenty-three, then the closest hand to - but not exceeding - either twenty-three wins.” Ben says, holding Obi-Wan’s gaze, which he found to be an eerie experience.

“That’s not so bad.” Obi-Wan nods. Ben smiles.

“And that, my dear padawan, is where sabacc loses all sense entirely…”

~*~

Ben has the degrading feeling that Obi-Wan learned more creative cuss words than he did card tricks by the end of a long afternoon, but his padawan is flush with easy happiness come the end of it, so Ben considers the day a success.

He spends all of dinner telling Shmi about it, and though she is dismayed at the game itself, she encourages his excited retelling without fault. Anakin spends most of dinner smearing sauce on Obi-Wans sleeve, and the boy doesn’t even notice.

The next morning, Ben sends Obi-Wan off after breakfast to catch up on his schoolwork and then do as he pleases, and makes an effort to track down a member of the Jedi Council.

While Ben has been volunteering to teach classes, aside from the Initiates Training Mission, he’s had no assignments so far, and he’s discovered his name is not even on the roster for missions.

“Master Naasade.” Mace Windu says, after meeting him with the flattest look possible when Ben explained his inquiry. “We have no kriffing idea what to _do_ with you. It’s not even about the –“ He waves a hand vaguely, but Ben gets it. “We just – you have _no_ record. We don’t know your personality, we don’t know your diplomatic skills, we don’t know your physical capability or your martial style, we don’t know your strengths and weaknesses and so we don’t know what missions we could assign you and what missions we can’t.”

Ben stares blankly at him for a long minute, titles passing through his memory. _Sith-Killer_. _Knight_. _Master. Councilor. General. High General. Negotiator_.

In another life, there had been no limit to what the Council asked of him, and here…and here…

“Oh.” Ben utters softly.

“There’s also the matter of your Padawan to consider.” Mace adds with furrowed brow, looking slightly concerned. Looking very young. “To be honest, until we come to a decision regarding…you know what… we’ve rather elected to allow you to do as you see fit, while we…observe.”

Ben lets that thought sink in and nods. “When he’s older, there are places we’ll have to go. I’ll have to take him away from the Temple for quite some time, but not…not yet. He’s nowhere near ready.” Ben says, somewhat absently. “Until then…I suppose use me as you would any other Master. Assign us missions, lectures, diplomatic envoy. I survived everything the galaxy could throw at Qui-Gon Jinn, in another life.”

Mace’s eyes widen at that, and Ben only winces slightly for letting that slip. Windu’s expression smooths over and he nods, then pauses.

“Speaking of your padawan, there have been…concerns.” Mace remarks, and Ben almost laughs.

“I’m well aware.” Ben replies. “Rest assured I’m not abusing my padawan. In fact, I’ve even given him the day off.”

Mace grunts, and leaves it be.


End file.
